


Detour

by JCapasso



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:07:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 54,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22942264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCapasso/pseuds/JCapasso
Summary: What happens if God's grand plan is derailed by a traitorous human and one claiming to speak in his name? Well he has to step in himself to fix it, that's what.Set during S4E2, in which Chloe doesn't spill the wine and goes through with her plan to drug Lucifer and call the priest and God is NOT happy.
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 178
Kudos: 321





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Since I saw the news that Dennis Haysbert was cast as God for Season 5, I'm using him as God, in case anyone wants a mental image.

Chloe took a deep breath to steady herself before she stepped out of the elevator. “Hi, Lucifer,” she said nervously. 

Lucifer looked over at her and smiled. He could tell she was nervous, but so was he really. This was something like a first date. “Detective, you look beautiful,” he said, trying to hide his breathlessness. 

Chloe looked down, forcing her guilt away as she blushed. “Thank you. No white tablecloth this time?”

“Ah. No, well, that went down like a pork chop at a kosher wedding, so… I made some adjustments,” Lucifer told her. 

“Of course you did,” Chloe muttered to herself. This was just proof of everything the priest had been telling her. “Well, it's very thoughtful,” she told him, steeling herself for what she was about to do. 

“Please, sit,” he invited as he walked over to the bar where he had the covered plates. “I made you grilled cheese. Your favorite. And not the smelly, fancy stuff. Just the yummy orange kind that you like,” he babbled slightly as he set the plates in front of them and poured the wine. He took a deep breath and made sure that his tone was as serious as his words when he continued speaking. “Detective, there is something I'd like to say to you. Whilst I realize that knowing the truth about me may not be easy for you I am glad that there are no secrets between us now. And if you ever have any more questions, I shall be happy to answer any and all of them. I've always been honest with you, Detective. And I always will be,” he said sincerely, willing her to believe him. 

Chloe felt a heavy weight start to settle on her chest as the doubts flared up again, but before she could respond, Lucifer interrupted. “Oh! Sorry. Silly me. I forgot the music. I made a playlist full of bad '90s jams for you,” he said as he got up and headed into the bedroom to turn the music on. Chloe took the opportunity to pour the sedative into his drink while he was out of the room, and almost spilled it when the music came on loudly and made her jump, but she managed and slid the vial back in her pocket just as he came out apologizing for the volume. 

Lucifer sat down and smiled at her before raising his glass and they both took a long drink, both feeling the nerves for very different reasons. It didn’t take long before Lucifer started swaying and looked at her with a look of betrayal on his face as he fell over. Chloe pulled out her phone and texted Father Kinley who was waiting downstairs, but just as he came in, there was suddenly someone else in the room. Chloe and the priest both backed up away from the tall black man in an almost glowing white suit. “Wh-who are you?” Chloe stammered. 

“You would know me as God,” he said matter-of-factly like he wasn’t just throwing their entire worlds into disarray, and he continued speaking, not even giving them time to process. “And I cannot allow this to happen.”

Father Kinley immediately fell to his knees. “I am your servant, my lord. Whatever you ask of me, I will do.”

“You are not my servant,” God said harshly. “You serve your own twisted code with no thought as to who is hurt in the process. You attempt to kill my son, derail his redemption, destroy my plans to bring him home, and dare to call yourself my servant?” 

Father Kinley just stammered barely understandable apologies, while Chloe turned white as a sheet and nearly fainted. How had she been so wrong? 

“Your punishment will be to go back to your church, with no memory of this conversation. You will continue your extremist views until you are excommunicated and you will live out the rest of your life with the stench of failure,” God told him, waving a hand and the priest disappeared before he turned to Chloe. “And you, my child…I am so very disappointed in you.”

“I-I’m sorry. I-I thought...He...and…and you…” Chloe tried to defend herself but the words weren’t coming. 

“You, however despicable your actions, were misled though, and as such I will be merciful and allow you a chance to undo what you’ve done. Once you understand what you’ve done, of course.”

“Th-thank you,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks now. 

God went over and knelt next to Lucifer, running a hand through his hair. “It will be alright, my son. I will not allow you to be taken from us again,” he said softly before getting up and turning back to Chloe.  
“You see, all of my children, human and angel alike, were created with a certain amount of power over their own destinies. Perhaps too much power, as I came to realize when Lucifer’s guilt over a…rather significant disagreement…caused him to fall into hell. You see, deep down that was what he thought he deserved and so it became so. I was still trying to figure out how to get him back when I was embroiled in a rather bitter and long-lasting fight with my wife, and by the time I won, I was gravely injured, and unable to do anything. Once I had recovered, it was too late. Lucifer’s heart had grown cold and his resentment towards me would not allow me to reach him, so I created you.”

“M-me?” Chloe asked, wide-eyed.”

“Yes, child. You. I spent a few generations manipulating your bloodlines to get everything in the right place, but then your mother was barren, so I had to send another of my sons to bless her with a miracle. With you.”

“But…why me?” she asked confused. 

“Because I needed someone who could open his heart. Teach him to feel again. To love again. To give me a chance of reaching him and help him believe that he could deserve to come home,” he said giving that a moment to sink in before sighing and waving his hand out over the room. “But then, this…”

“I-I’m so sorry,” Chloe sniffled. 

“To betray him after all he’s done for you was bad enough, but to use his feelings against him? To turn them into a weapon to destroy him? It’s unlikely that he would ever be able to come back from that, and I have lost too much time with my son as it is. I will not allow you to lose me the rest of eternity.”

“Wh-what can I do? How do I fix this?” Chloe asked desperately. 

“First, you have to understand. Then, I will turn back time, just this once, and give you a chance to set it all to rights.” Before Chloe had a chance to thank him, his face turned hard and he continued. “Know this, though, Chloe Decker. If you fail again. If you destroy my son the way you just tried to…your hell will be the very worst nightmare you could possibly imagine. I will make sure of it.” 

“So…so I just have to…to love him?” Chloe asked, anxious not to mess up again. 

God shook his head. “No. I am not telling you how to feel, or how to act. You must do what is in your heart, and nothing less. To pretend to love him for anyone else’s sake, even mine, would be as much of a betrayal as what you tried here. I am telling you, do not betray him. Do not lie to him. Do not use his feelings against him. That is all,” he said, trying to make it very clear that he didn’t want her to pretend to feel something she didn’t no matter what the reason. He knew how worried his son already was about her feelings being manipulated by him, and the last thing he wanted was to make it worse. By making it clear that it would be a betrayal too, he was sure that he got his point across. 

“So just…just be myself?” she asked confused. “But without the lying and betraying him part?” 

“Precisely. You need to open your eyes. You believed scary stories written by humans who had never seen him and the nasty words of a man who had never met him over what you’ve seen with your own eyes and know with your own heart.”

At that, her tears started to flow again as she realized that he was right. She hadn’t trusted him, even after learning that he had been telling the truth all along, and she had no doubt that that fact alone would be enough to harden his heart against her. “You’re right. I was an idiot,” she admitted, hanging her head in shame. 

“Yes. You were. And you are about to find out just how much of one you were,” God told her, waving his hand as the scene around them changed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much of the next few chapters are just God taking Chloe on a trip down memory lane of the episodes, but I've tried to keep enough original content and reactions in there to keep it from being boring.

Chloe saw herself walking into Lux and over to Lucifer. “What happened?” she saw herself ask Lucifer worriedly. 

“Hmm? Oh. This, yes. Just a little, you know, squabble with my bro. Nothing serious,” Lucifer waved it off. 

Past Chloe sighed, “I don't I don't like how we left it at the auction.”

“Yes. Yes, I I agree. You definitely could have handled things better,” Lucifer replied with a bit of a laugh. “And I supposed, you know, I - Sorry. What was I saying?” 

Present Chloe chuckled a bit at how ‘Lucifer’ that almost apology was as she heard her past self continue with a sigh. “Look, I know how much it sucks being alone. And I can't pretend to understand why the wings meant so much to you. But if we're really friends, it it should be enough just knowing that they did.”

Lucifer just shrugged. “The wings are old news now.”

Chloe watched herself laugh incredulously as she said, “Earlier they were all you could think about. Now you just don't care?”

Lucifer took a long sip of his drink. “Well, in my search for the wings, I realized what they actually were. A relic worth exactly what someone was willing to pay for them. What can I say? I've moved on to bigger and better things.”

God chose that moment to speak up. “That was the moment that he started to see more in you than just a conquest. That he started to realize that the strange pull he felt towards you might be something special.” 

“Why?” she asked curiously. It didn’t seem like anything special to her. 

“Because you cared. Not about the wings, but about his feelings. That was a rather new experience for him,” God told her. “One thing you must first understand about him is what it is like in Hell. You see, the very atmosphere sucks away all good feelings and memories. It twists everything good into something bad, so all the good memories he had of The Silver City…heaven as you know it…had all the worst parts emphasized in his mind. He didn’t remember happiness or love. He doesn’t remember what it’s like to be cared for. The only company he’s had for millennia are demons who, while they would have protected his life as their king, would have cared nothing for any feelings even if he hadn’t learned to shut them off to protect himself.”

“He can do that? Just turn off his feelings?” Chloe asked, her heart breaking at the description of Hell. 

“It is not easy. For anyone. But in that environment, it is either that or go mad,” God told her. “And demons…they don’t have feelings at all, though it seems that they can develop them,” he trailed off. “But that’s something to consider at another time. What you need to know is that, in this moment, you showed him what it was like to be cared about.”

“And you don’t care how he was talking about his wings?” Chloe asked confused as that suddenly hit her. 

“It hurts me more than I can say that he felt that way, but at the same time, gave me hope that he felt anything at all, and it was just after this that he began to understand the concept of jealousy. His path is a long and difficult one, and this was but the first step on the journey,” God told her. “Now it’s time for the next.” He waved a hand and the scene changed again.

Chloe stumbled as she found herself standing in Lux as Father Frank introduced himself to Lucifer and she was slightly taken aback at the harsh way that Lucifer spoke to him, but didn’t say anything and neither did God. “So why not ask your boss then? The Almighty himself,” they watched Lucifer sneer at the priest. 

“I already have,” Father Frank told him. 

“Oh, no luck?” Lucifer scoffed, as though he didn’t doubt it for a moment. 

“On the contrary, I believe that he led me to you,” the priest replied. 

“He was right,” God told Chloe. “He had impressed me greatly, like so few men of the cloth do, so I gave him a very special job to do.” 

“And Lucifer just kept trying to find dirt on him,” Chloe pointed out, keeping one ear on the conversation. 

“That was to be expected. By both me and Frank,” God told her. “After all…” he trailed off and motioned to the conversation just as Lucifer said, “You and I are natural sworn enemies.”

“So this was all to…what? Prove him wrong?” Chloe asked. 

“In a manner of speaking,” God told her. “I needed him to accept the fact that, just maybe, I wasn’t the enemy he had come to see me as.” God waved a hand again and the scene changed once more. 

Chloe found herself standing on the balcony of Lucifer’s penthouse as the devil offered the priest a light. “Please tell me you didn't come out here to talk to Him,” Lucifer asked distastefully. 

“God? This is as good a spot as any,” Father Frank replied. 

Lucifer laughed derisively. “Right. Does He, uh does He ever talk back?”

“I don't need to hear Him to hear Him. If you know what I mean,” the priest said knowingly. 

“So you never actually told him what to do?” Chloe asked curiously, wondering how God had gotten the point across to the priest as to what he wanted him to do. 

“No. I didn’t need to. I never tell anyone what to do. I simply point them in the right direction and let their own natures take over,” God told her. 

“Well, yes, He never talks to me, either. Listen, um sorry about the altar boy. Surely you know you're not to blame. I mean, some people are just beyond saving,” Lucifer told him as Chloe turned her attention back to the scene. 

“That's where you're wrong. There's still hope for him,” Father Frank said resolutely. 

“He shot up your church, he's most likely running a drug ring behind your back, and, oh, yes, killed a man,” Lucifer said incredulously.

“I don't believe that,” the priest replied. 

“Look, what if it's true?” Lucifer tried to get him to see reason. 

“And here comes the most important part, and why I chose Frank to carry out this task,” God told Chloe to make sure she was paying attention. 

“Then he needs me even more,” the priest told him. 

“How can you still have faith in this boy?” Lucifer asked in disbelief. 

“God has faith in him. In all of us. Even in our darkest moments,” Father Frank told Lucifer. 

“Oh, you really believe that,” Lucifer rolled his eyes. 

“I do. Why don't you?” 

“Because He didn't have faith in me,” Lucifer said despondently and Chloe gasped, realizing just how important this was for Lucifer and why God had brought her here to help understand him. 

“I felt that way once, too. But now I know, deep in my heart, God has a plan for me,” the priest told him. 

“Oh, His plan for me was quite clear,” Lucifer sneered. 

“How do you know it's finished?” 

“That was when I realized that there was hope. His reaction to this conversation,” God told her. 

“He doesn’t seem to believe it,” Chloe said wondering what she had missed. 

“He doesn’t. Not really. But he didn’t completely dismiss it either. It got him thinking.” He waved his hand again and Chloe found herself in the familiar church just after Frank was shot. 

“No, no, no, you idiot!” Lucifer cried rushing over to the priest. Don't go anywhere, you moron! It's okay.” Chloe watched, understanding a lot more about his reaction here and catching most of the conversation that she had missed the last time around in her focus on the shooter.

“I'm not afraid of dying,” Frank told Lucifer. 

“Well, you should be. It's really boring where you're headed,” Lucifer told him and God chuckled. 

“I hope so. I've had enough excitement for one life.”

“Stop talking like that. You've got more to do here. You've got more people to annoy,” Lucifer almost begged him. 

“Pressure on the wound!” Chloe heard herself say. 

“I am!” Lucifer called back to her before turning his attention back to the priest. “Just come on, Frank, stay with me, stay with me.”

Frank groaned in pain. “At first I didn't understand why God put you in my path. But then it hit me. Maybe He put me in yours.

“I highly doubt it,” Lucifer scoffed. “He gave up on me a long time ago.”

Frank panted as he felt himself slipping away. “You're wrong, Lucifer. Remember your father has-has a plan.”

God waved a hand and the scene changed again and they were back on the balcony of the penthouse while Lucifer railed at his father. “So I get why you sent the priest and all, but why did he have to die? It seems like it just hurt Lucifer more.” 

“There were a few reasons, but the main one was that he had to die because it was his time. I gave him one last job to do before he came home to be reunited with his daughter in a place of honor in heaven. I know that it hurt Lucifer, and in a way, turned him even more against me, but in the end it will help him. He will learn that just because he can’t see the reasons doesn’t mean they aren’t there. And here’s another part of the reason coming up,” he drew her attention back to the scene as Lucifer abandoned his rant and went to the piano. 

Chloe smiled sadly as she heard Knocking on Heaven’s Door echoing through the penthouse. It didn’t take long before she saw herself come out of the elevator. “Here, once again, you proved to him that he mattered to you. Look how easily you cheered him up. This is when he first started to fall for you.” 

“I would never have guessed that he had been hurting so much before I came up,” Chloe admitted. 

“And he wouldn’t have wanted you to,” God told her. “His belief that emotions are a weakness is just starting to show the first cracks. It is this belief that would have come back stronger than ever before due to your actions.” He knew that they had gotten somewhat off task, but she needed to understand him before she could understand everything that he had done for her and just how deeply she would have hurt him.


	3. Chapter 3

Their next stop was a quick one. As Lucifer learned that it was Chloe who was making him vulnerable. “So that’s why…” Chloe trailed off before finishing her thought. “He kept insisting that he was immortal and everything, but then when I shot him…but why would I make a difference?”

“That would be part of what I mentioned at the beginning about him having control of his own fate. His feelings for you make him feel vulnerable to you, which then translates to a physical vulnerability,” God explained. “I am hoping that it will resolve itself in time.” 

“But if that’s the case then why wouldn’t he just stay as far away from me as he could?” Chloe asked confused. 

“Don’t think he didn’t try,” God said with a chuckle and Chloe suddenly remembered how he had avoided her for weeks after that conversation. She also remembered how she had gotten mad at him for bailing, thinking that he was running from her for a different reason. 

God waved a hand and the scene changed again. Back in Lucifer’s penthouse as Malcom Graham was bragging about killing the Satanists. Chloe remembered how Lucifer had seemed so unsettled about the whole case and how horrified he was at what was done supposedly in his name, but the scene she was seeing now brought it all into perspective and showed just how deeply it had hurt him. 

“Whoa! But I did this for you. Aren't you happy?” She watched Malcom protest. 

“Why would I be happy? I'm not evil. I punish evil,” Lucifer told him and only the fact that she knew him so well allowed her to see the pain in his eyes. 

“Yeah, but, but you're, you know,” Malcom replied as though it should be obvious. 

“The Devil, yes,” Lucifer snapped. “And you think you know who that is, don't you? The whole world does. A torturer, maybe. An inflictor of just desserts, sure. But a senseless murderer I am not.” 

Chloe felt the tears welling up in her eyes as she realized how like Malcom she had been. Believing that he was evil, but it was so much worse for her. She knew him far better than Malcom did. She should have seen it. Should have known that he could never be evil. It was all right there in front of her but she had panicked when her world got turned upside down and she screwed up. Little did she know, this was only the beginning of her journey and she would be in much worse shape later. 

She watched as Amenadiel came in and tried to protect Malcom and she looked on confused. “What does Amenadiel have to do with Malcom? And why was he trying to get Lucifer back in Hell if you didn’t want him there?” 

“Amenadiel raised Malcom from the dead to kill Lucifer when he found out that he was vulnerable. It wasn’t until later that they learned that he was only vulnerable around you. Amenadiel is…misguided. As I’ve said, I never tell anyone what to do, simply because an order from me carries far too much weight. I never told him to return Lucifer to Hell and the fact that I didn’t step in or send someone else when he failed eventually allowed him to realize that. He was never doing it for me though. He was doing it for himself.”

“What do you mean?” Chloe asked. 

“Amenadiel was the one who took the job of patrolling the gates of Hell in Lucifer’s absence and he hated the job. He wanted Lucifer back there so he wouldn’t have to do it anymore. No other reason. He knew that I hadn’t sent him, but chose to believe that it was what I wanted anyway.” 

“Then why didn’t you correct him?” Chloe asked. 

“Because it would have made things worse,” God told her. “Amenadiel has always been jealous of Lucifer. Lucifer was always considered my favorite son, and in some ways it was true. He was my lightbringer. The heart of The Silver City. But that didn’t mean I loved any of them any less. I loved them all equally, but Lucifer was always a bit of a handful and needed more attention. If I had intervened on Lucifer’s behalf, Amenadiel would have resented him even more and it would have spiraled out of control.”

When Chloe nodded in understanding, God took that option to continue the show and they were suddenly downstairs in Lux as she saw herself walk in and she winced, knowing what was coming. “If you've come to have a shot at me, now's the time. Everyone's doing it,” Lucifer said defeated. 

“Yeah, your scuffle with the preacher made the local news,” Chloe watched herself say. 

Lucifer laughed derisively. “Oh, that. That was about five disasters ago,” he said as he took a swig of his drink. 

“God, your face,” Chloe said as she finally noticed. 

“Yeah, well, what can I say? You should've seen the other chap,” Lucifer quipped. 

“Thought I did. What happened?”

Lucifer scoffed. “Well where do I begin? With the grandest fall in the history of time? Or perhaps the far more agonizing punishment that followed? To be blamed for every morsel of evil humanity's endured, every atrocity committed in my name? Trying to impress me, as though I wanted people to suffer,” he said brokenly. “All I ever wanted was to be my own man here. To be judged for my own doing. And for that? I've been shown how truly powerless I am. That even the people I trusted; the one person, you could be used to hurt me.” 

Chloe’s heart broke seeing how defeated he already was and knowing what was coming next as she tried to arrest him and the look on his face as he begged her to believe him and didn’t care one whit about anyone else, almost broke her. The way he ranted and tried to get them to shoot him…she could see now that he wanted to die rather than face her thinking he was guilty. How his thinking that she was just like all the others who kept blaming him had seemed to truly break him. 

She finally got to see what had happened to him after the kid had panicked and shot at him as she suddenly found herself stumbling on a rooftop as Amenadiel put Lucifer down. “Can we not tell anyone you just carried me in your arms like a baby?” 

“What were you trying to accomplish in there?” Amenadiel asked. 

“Uh, a good death? Or at least a nice and messy one. But then you had to come and ruin everything, like always. Why'd you swoop in and stop it? Wouldn't let someone else send me to Hell, is that it? Well, guess what, brother, you don't need to kill me, because I'm done here. I've had my fun on Earth, and there's no reason for me to stay anymore. You win. I'll go willingly. Please, just take me back to Hell.”

Chloe’s tears finally started falling at the way he was completely giving up. And it was all her fault. She hadn’t thought that he was capable of murder, but she didn’t tell him that. Hadn’t seen a way to with so many other cops there, but she should have tried. She should have just said what she needed to no matter who would have heard her. When it suddenly hit her that she had been so sure he wasn’t capable of murder here, but a few years later, when she should have been more sure than ever before, she had so easily thought him evil, that’s when the tears started falling harder. 

She was still crying when the scene changed again and she was on her way to get her daughter from Malcom as Lucifer was begging her to see reason. “Do you see how worried he is about you?” God asked her, not letting up due to her tears. She needed to see everything. She needed to understand if she was going to avoid making the same mistakes again and if that meant breaking her spirit first, then so be it. She would still get a chance most people never got at the end. The chance to undo her worst mistake and he could only do this once so he had to make sure it counted. 

Chloe nodded. She had seen it at the time, but didn’t think much of it, and when the scene changed again she tried to close her eyes, not wanting to see him die, but then she found that she couldn’t. After Malcom shot him, they stayed beside Lucifer instead of going after Malcom, herself, or Trixie. Chloe couldn’t keep herself from kneeling next to Lucifer and reaching out to stop the bleeding, despite knowing that this was just a memory and sure enough, her hands went right through him, but his words were what went right through her. 

“I don't know if this is all part of the plan. Or if You can even hear me. But if You're up there Dad I need a favor. I'll be the son you always wanted me to be. I'll do as You ask. Go where You want me to,” Lucifer croaked out as the life was fading from his eyes, and Chloe thought that he was begging for his own life until the next words fell from his lips. “In exchange, all I ask is that you protect Chloe.” 

When she heard that his last words were worry for her even as he stopped breathing, she fell to her behind, not able to hold herself up anymore. “Y-you idiot,” she whispered shakily. “You should have been more worried about yourself.”

“But he never did worry much about himself. Even before Hell. It was always about others for him.”

“He acted like such a…a narcissist,” Chloe said softly, not taking her eyes off Lucifer even as he woke up. 

“Yes. Acted. Because he felt that if people knew how much he cared, then that could be used against him,” God told her. 

“Just like what I did in the end,” Chloe said hugging her knees to her chest. God saw no need to twist the knife and just kept quiet, giving her a chance to get herself together. Eventually, she sniffled and wiped her tears, looking at Lucifer sitting up in the paused scene. “You brought him back.”

“Yes and no. I left the door cracked so that he could get back. Unfortunately that had more consequences than I had foreseen, though that’s another story for another time,” God told her. “He chose to come back, mostly because he was afraid for you.”


	4. Chapter 4

The next stop was a conversation that Lucifer had with his mother. God didn’t really want her to see this, but it was necessary to understand what was coming next. “Lucifer I wish, with all my being, that things could go back to the way things were. With you and all my children again in Heaven. I want what your father took from me. I want my home back. But I know that's not possible. So I want to do what I can to be a good mother to you here, on Earth.”

“It's too late. You abandoned me, Mum. You just stood by and watched as I was cast out. Thrown into Hell and vilified for all eternity. There aren't enough cheesy noodles in the universe to fix all that, I'm afraid,” Lucifer replied. 

“Your father never sent you to Hell. I did,” his mother told him. 

“Oh, great.Much better.”

“I did it to save your life. After the rebellion, your father was angry. Deeply angry. He wanted to destroy you. I begged him not to. I asked him to send you to Hell instead. I did it because I love you, son. And I always will. However if you still need me to return me to Hell, I understand. You do what is right for you,” she told him earnestly. 

“What…” Chloe asked looking between them and God completely confused, but God held up a hand for her to wait. 

“That's very gracious of you, Mother,” Lucifer drawled.

“Okay, but please don't send me back to Hell. But I meant the rest.”

“I know you did. All right. All right, you can stay. For now. Just until I figure out what I need to do.”

The scene paused, and God took the chance to answer Chloe’s question from before. “She lied to him. Was manipulating him. She was always very good at that.”

“But why?” Chloe asked.

“To use him against me,” God told her. “I barely managed to beat her one on one. If she could get the lightbringer on her side, not only would it give her a numbers advantage, but if she managed to find the flaming sword, which she eventually did, Lucifer was the only one who could ignite it, and it is the only weapon in the universe that could destroy me.” 

“That’s…horrible. And he fell for it?” Chloe asked worriedly. 

“Mostly, yes. For a while at least,” God told her. “But that was just so that you could see how deeply she got her hooks back into him before this.” He waved a hand again and they were standing on another rooftop watching as Lucifer bantered with a brother she hadn’t met, but then the conversation took a nasty turn. 

“I came to you tell you that you have 24 hours,” Uriel said. 

Lucifer looked confused. “I'll bite. 24 hours or what?”

“Either return here with Mom, or I'll finish what I started with your detective,” Uriel told him. 

“The car accident,” Lucifer said knowingly.

“Wait so that really wasn’t an accident?” Chloe asked incredulously. She had thought that Lucifer was being ridiculously overprotective, but she had apparently been wrong. 

“You made a deal with Dad. Time to pay up. So bring Mom to me, or I'll take back what Dad gave you,” Uriel told him. 

“What did he mean?” Chloe asked curiously. 

“When Lucifer realized that his mother escaped when I left the door open for him, he thought that I had made a deal to protect you if he put his mother back,” God explained. “They were always very good at seeing signs where there weren’t any. Not that I would have complained about that outcome, of course, but it was never any kind of demand like they thought.”

“So he finally had his mother back and loving him after so long, thinking that his father still hated him so to his mind she was the only parental figure that cared, and he was asked to give her up to save me? Who would ever take that deal?” She asked. “I definitely wouldn’t have blamed him for anything that happened to me over it.”

“But he would have,” God told her as the scene changed again.

“I'm letting Uriel take me back to Hell,” the goddess said. 

Lucifer scoffed. “Well, there's no need to overreact, Mother.”

“She never would have done it,” God explained to Chloe. “It was just another manipulation. If she intended to do it she would have gone straight to Uriel without involving Lucifer at all. She was banking on his need to protect everyone.”

“Yeah. That makes sense. I’m surprised that he can’t see that,” Chloe replied, somewhat confused. 

“Like most people, Lucifer is more than a little bit blind when it comes to those he cares about,” God explained. 

When Chloe tuned back into the conversation, Maze was speaking. “She goes back to Hell, where she belongs; Chloe is safe, and I don't have to clean up your mess anymore. 

“More importantly, you get to keep your word,” his mother told him. 

“I am keeping my word. You're serving out your sentence here on Earth,” Lucifer said firmly. 

“You know that's not what your Father wanted,” his mother pointed out. 

“Do I?!” Lucifer yelled. “Everyone thinks they know what He wants. Amenadiel did when he first got here, now Uriel does. Human wars have been waged because of it. Dad showed me an open door. Does that mean I was meant to take you back to Hell or was he insinuating that Hell was getting drafty?” God couldn’t help but chuckle at that one and even Chloe smiled a bit. “Nobody bloody knows, because the selfish bastard won't just tell us! And I'm sick of it. No more.”

“There's my Lightbringer. My Morningstar,” his mother said softly, reaching up to touch his face. 

Chloe snorted. “If I ever doubted that she was manipulating him, that alone would be proof.” God nodded and the scene changed again. 

Chloe watched as Lucifer tried to reason with his brother, gasped as she learned what the blade would do and then she knew that there was no way this was going to go well. She wracked her brain, trying to place the time that this happened, but deep down she knew, which was how she knew what was about to happen. Uriel had been about to kill them both…somehow…when Lucifer ran the blade through him and her heart broke for Lucifer as he hit his knees, cradling his brother’s body. His shaky words of ‘He was my brother’ and the way he looked at the blood on his hand, just made it worse. She managed to hold her tears back though, right up until he fell apart sobbing in his mother’s arms. 

“Why didn’t you do something? Stop it before he had to kill his brother?” Chloe asked accusingly. 

“Because I couldn’t,” God told her. “I didn’t know that Uriel was coming to Earth and once he was here, I couldn’t get to him without going onto her radar and I’m not strong enough to stand against her yet.”

“But if she was in the same fight…” Chloe asked.

“So why isn’t she as weak as I am?” God finished for her and Chloe nodded. “She’s been doing nothing but relaxing in Hell since they have no way to torture her celestial form, while I’ve had so much to do just to keep the world turning. Recovery time is hard to find and I have to keep expending power as fast as I replenish it.”

“Then why does she need Lucifer to get to you?” Chloe asked. 

“First of all, she doesn’t know how weak I am. Secondly, the gates of heaven are barred to her and only the flaming sword can cut through them. Without the sword, she can’t get to me in The Silver City, no matter what she does, which is why I couldn’t leave. Trust me, the world with her in charge would not be pretty.” Chloe nodded and turned her mind back to what she had just seen.

She remembered how insane he had been after that. How he had tried to get a sniper to kill him. How she had accused him of wanting to be punished for something and being upset that he wouldn’t talk to her when he told her that she couldn’t understand. They popped through a few quick scenes, showing how poorly he was dealing with it, including his revealing his true face to his therapist and she was taken aback at how gently he’d done it, and the hurt in his eyes at her reaction made the tears well up in her eyes again. It seemed like all she was doing was crying today, but she didn’t really care at the moment. Lucifer had killed his own brother to protect her. At least partially. She hadn’t missed how Uriel had said that Lucifer cared more for her than for his own mother, and how Lucifer didn’t disagree. Not to mention the way he had hovered around her in an attempt to protect her from anything and everything…it was clear who he was most trying to protect there. He’d killed his own brother for her and she’d tried to kill him in return.


	5. Chapter 5

The next scene was when Lucifer was refusing to leave Earth, and the sword started to get a little bit of the flame and Chloe remembered what God had mentioned about the flaming sword and gasped. Seeing his mother admit so freely to Amenadiel that she was manipulating Lucifer made them want to slap them both. Her for doing it and Amenadiel for going along with it. She was starting to understand the love/hate relationship between the brothers better now, and also how forgiving Lucifer could be to those he cared about, despite how unforgiving he was to everyone else. 

Next she found herself outside the courthouse on what she quickly figured out was the day of the trial of her father’s killer. She watched as Lucifer confronted his mother and asked what she was playing at, which is what Chloe wanted to know too. 

“I had to find a way to open your eyes. You need to see that this Chloe you so adore isn't worthy of you,” she replied and Chloe glared at her, despite the fact that neither of them could see her. 

Lucifer scoffed. “I admit I enjoy working with her, but adore? That’s a bit much,” he said unconvincingly. 

It was his mother’s turn to scoff. “Oh, please. You've sacrificed more for her than you ever have for anyone else. Have you forgotten? You killed your brother, my son, to protect her. Do you think there's anything even remotely similar that she would do for you?”

Chloe winced at her words. She had turned on him and tried to kill him so it seemed the goddess was right. Lucifer’s words just drove that home even more. “I suppose I don't know,” he said. Chloe tried to remind herself that she had passed this test, but that was a small comfort knowing that she’d failed the most important one. 

“Well, if all goes according to plan in that courtroom, you will know,” his mother told him. “Know that she doesn't deserve you, because she doesn't care about you like you care about her. You need to see that you're not meant to be together. You belong with your family. Which is why I have to do this.”

“Do what, Mum? What sort of evil plan are you concocting? And please don't tell me it began by killing Boris,” Lucifer asked accusingly. 

“Oh, actually, that was just a happy twist of fate. I was gonna blow Chloe up, but Amenadiel talked me out of it.” Chloe gasped with how matter-of-factly her attempted murder was just discussed, and apparently it bothered Lucifer just as much. 

You what?! Mother, I swear, if you hurt her, I will rip…” Chloe let out a strangled sound and took a step back as his eyes flashed red in anger. 

“Well, looks like your brother was right,” his mother said. 

“Just promise me that you won't touch her,” Lucifer said, a bit of desperation creeping into his voice. 

“I'm not going to hurt anyone,” she promised.

The next thing Chloe knew she was watching herself on the stand at the trial talking about Lucifer. “I don’t think you realized just how much this affected him. The fact that you trusted him so completely, even while not believing him when he claimed to be the devil. This was when he realized that maybe he could have a chance. Then the scene changed to their almost kiss on the balcony before the stewardess showed up and she ran away. She wanted to yell at herself. To tell her past self that it wasn’t a mistake. That Lucifer was very much worth it. That’s when she realized that she really did love him. Only watching her past self walk away, did it become clear. 

The next scene change made her stumble again as they were in a bar, watching Lucifer go up to his mother and Maze. She knew when he started talking about how they were real that it was right after they got the professor who was poisoning people. She felt her heart swell at how happy he seemed to be and then felt the crushing weight along with him when he found the picture and his mother convinced him that she was a weapon to be used against him. Now she understood so much more about what happened afterwards; why he left. They apparently still had a way to go before they got to that though because the next thing she knew she was watching him burst through her door demanding to find out if she had known. She hadn’t caught that before, so worried about her nose bleeding, but now she could see the anger turn to fear in a split second as soon as he caught sight of her. 

The next scene was back in Lucifer’s penthouse. “The plan is simple: you kill me, I go down to Hell, interrogate the professor, get the formula and then you bring me back. Well, come on! Who's in?” Lucifer asked.

The watching Chloe let her jaw drop in shock. “Is he serious?” she asked incredulously, more to herself than God.

“This is a terrible idea. I absolutely forbid it,” his mother said, and for once Chloe actually agreed with her. 

Maze chimed in at that. “I hate to agree with Her Highness, but she's right. You'd be on your own. We both know I can't go down with you.”

“Well, I went down and came back once before, it wasn't a problem,” Lucifer said dismissively. 

“That's because Father brought you back,” Amenadiel argued.

“And you didn't go through any of the doors. Once you do, you could be trapped forever,” Maze reminded him. 

“Well, that won't happen, will it? I'm the Lord of Hell, for crying out loud,” Lucifer said impatiently. 

“You /were/ the Lord of Hell. You've been away quite a long time. You can't be certain that this will work,” his mother pointed out. 

“What do you think?” Lucifer asked Linda. 

“I think that I followed about half of that. Do you guys do this a lot? Like, celestial planning sessions?” she asked in awe. 

“Oh, apparently not. Otherwise, we would have had a meeting about carelessly revealing our true nature to a human. Which she has apparently known about for a while and kept from me,” Amenadiel snarked. 

“Yeah, well, turnabout's fair play,” Linda snarked back before turning her attention back to the problem. “Okay, wrapping my brain around this Lucifer, what makes you so sure you'd go to Hell?”

“In case you've missed it, doctor, I've been banned from Heaven. There's nowhere else for me to go,” Lucifer pointed out. 

“And you're sure there's no other way to get there? I mean, dying?” Linda asked. 

“Well, if anyone has a better suggestion, by all means, speak up now. Quite frankly, I'd prefer to Uber there. But look, I am doing this with or without you,” Lucifer said ending the discussion on whether it was a good idea. 

“Well, I'm sorry. Having spent millennia in that terrible place, I can't be part of you going back. Not even for a moment,” his mother said firmly.”

“Fine,” Lucifer quickly dismissed her. 

The goddess sighed. “Amenadiel? Are you coming?”

“No, Mom, I'm gonna help. Chloe, she doesn't deserve this,” Amenadiel told her, getting a grateful look from Lucifer. 

Maze was the next to chime in. “This is the craziest plan I've ever heard. I'm in.”

“Doctor, surely you have some sensible advice,” his mother tried one more time to reach someone. 

“Um, he's the Devil. Nothing's really been sensible since I found that out.”

That was the last straw for her. “I will not help you get trapped down there. Not for some insignificant human's life,” she snapped as she stormed out and they set to planning how they were going to do it. 

Only her shock kept Chloe from snorting with laughter when both Amenadiel and Maze quickly offered to kill him. As it was breaking up, Chloe turned to God and said, “Tell me he didn’t really…”

“That is for you to see. That’s our next stop,” he told her waving his hand, knowing that seeing would drive the point home far better than hearing about it. 

They were outside her room in the hospital as Lucifer was telling Amenadiel to make sure she wasn’t moved. The easy way he was talking about dying now that it seemed to be imminent had her heart in her throat and she wanted to shake him. To yell at him. To tell him that this wasn’t the way. That he couldn’t do this. She didn’t want it like that. Even knowing that he eventually survived didn’t change that. 

Then they were in a room with him being hooked up to a machine. She was somewhat surprised to see Maze chicken out of killing him and then Lucifer just grabbed the paddles himself and didn’t even hesitate to kill himself. For her. 

Next they were in what seemed to be Lucifer’s penthouse again and she was confused for a moment before she felt the oppressive atmosphere almost crushing her and threatening to tear her apart. “A-are we in-in Hell?” she asked God as she saw Lucifer come in and stab his brother. 

“We are. Lucifer was trapped in his own hell by his guilt over killing Uriel,” God explained. 

Chloe broke down and sobbed as she fell to her knees, arms wrapped around her like she could hold herself together this way. She understood now why Lucifer had forced himself to stop feeling. She hadn’t even been here for five minutes and she wanted to die. She watched as Lucifer killed Uriel over and over until his mother came in to rescue him. She watched as the goddess admitted to manipulating him as she succumbed to her own guilt, but the reminder of her needing him was enough to snap him out of his and he dragged her out with him. 

The next thing she knew she was back in Lucifer’s hospital room as Maze was falling apart because they weren’t able to revive him. It worked on the next try though and he was immediately up and moving. She wanted to yell at him to get back in bed. He looked dead on his feet and being up and around so soon after coming back to life couldn’t be good for him. He just rushed past everyone though, even as they revived his mother and Chloe and God followed. Well, Chloe stumbled, not together enough to do much more. Thankfully, Lucifer was still just as shaky on his feet so they didn’t get left behind and she watched him run straight to her room and hand over the formula before he let himself collapse to sitting on the floor against the wall. 

She went over and sat next to him, reaching out for him only for her hand to go straight through as the tears continued streaming down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Lucifer. I never knew…why wouldn’t you ever tell me?” God declined to answer her question, knowing that she would see for herself soon enough, and he just gave her some space to get herself together again.


	6. Chapter 6

Once Chloe was as settled as she was going to get, God waved a hand again and they were standing outside the hospital as Lucifer’s mother was chasing him down. “How is the detective?” she asked him. 

“She'll be fine,” Lucifer said shortly. 

“And what about the two of you?”

Lucifer laughed harshly. “Well, it was never real, was it?”

“Lucifer, I am so sorry.”

“Father brought her into existence - just to put her in my path. The whole thing's been a sham, Mum. Long con. And I fell for it.”

“You can't blame yourself. This is all His doing. And He should be punished for it,” she told him. 

“She’s still trying to manipulate him? I’ll kill her,” the watching Chloe snapped. 

“Oh, make no mistake, I plan on that. I mean, how can I trust anything, anyone, now that I know He might be behind it all?”

“Well, you can trust me,” his mother assured him and Chloe snorted. 

“Can I, Mum? You're as bad as He is. Worse, maybe. At least He doesn't pretend to love me,” Lucifer told her, and as much as Chloe’s heart was breaking for him, she was also so proud of him. 

“Lucifer. I do love you,” she was cut off by another harsh laugh from her son. “I went back to Hell for you. I helped save the detective, for you. Doesn't that count for anything?”

“It's too little too late, Mother. You set out to break my heart. Well mission accomplished,” he said, voice wavering at the last and Chloe’s eyes filled with tears again as he admitted to having a broken heart. When his mother reached for him, he jerked away. “No. No more manipulations. This feud that you have with Father, I refuse to be caught in the middle any longer. I am tired of being a pawn. So, no more. I'm done,” he said as he walked away and she was left to call after him in vain. 

The next thing she knew she was standing in the vending room of the precinct as Amenadiel and Lucifer were talking. “You know I watched over Chloe for weeks after you disappeared, right?” Amenadiel said heatedly. 

“Angel or creeper, brother? It's a fine line,” Lucifer quipped. 

“You asked me to guard her, so I did. Like an idiot! You see, because I thought that she meant something to you.” Lucifer scoffed but Amenadiel just continued. “We both know she's special.”

“Oh. That she is. A whoopee cushion sent from Dad. I'm sure he's having a right old laugh at the moment,” Lucifer said derisively. 

“So that means it's okay to turn your back on Chloe? Just ignore her feelings? Feelings she had no control over?”

“Feelings that aren't real,” Lucifer pointed out. 

“But she doesn't know that,” Amenadiel countered. 

“Which is why I had to save her from…”

“From you,” Amenadiel said as he figured it out and the watching Chloe gasped as she finally got it. Why he never told her any of it. “You're not ignoring Chloe, you're protecting her because she had no choice.”

“So I gave it back to her,” Lucifer said with a nod. 

“By holding up a shield made of Candy. I'm sorry, Lucifer. You should at least explain some of this to Mom. She's upset,” Amenadiel said. 

“Good,” Both Lucifer and the invisible Chloe said at the same time and she couldn’t help the giggle that escaped at that. 

“She died and went to Hell for you, Luci. For you. She faced her greatest fears all because she loves you,” Amenadiel argued. 

“Oh, come on,” Lucifer and Chloe both said at the same time again and Chloe just shook her head this time at the absurdity. 

“Yes, she hurt you. But she was just doing what she thought was best for you. And from what you just told me, I'm quite sure you can relate to that,” Amenadiel tried one last time. 

“Don’t you dare fall for that crap, Lucifer,” Chloe said despite the fact that this was just a memory. 

“It is rather ironic, don’t you think, that the one person whose manipulation he sees everywhere is the one who isn’t pulling his strings?” God asked. 

“Aren’t you?” Chloe asked, finally understanding Lucifer’s never-ending paranoia. “Granted it seems to be for his own good, but this entire trip here, creating me to begin with, turning back time so that I can undo my mistake…that’s all manipulation too.”

God tilted his head in thought. “You may have a point. But as you said, it’s for his own good. I’m not trying to get him to do anything except forgive himself and find happiness, whatever that may be for him.”

“I thought you were trying to get him home?” Chloe accused. 

“Yes and no. I want him to be /able/ to come home, but I will never take that choice away from him,” God told her. “Though I do intend to set down some ground rules if he intends to continue playing on Earth.” After all, if things went the way he expected, he would at least be spending the rest of Chloe’s mortal life here with her. He fully expected Lucifer to happily come home after that so that he could spend eternity with her as well, but he meant what he said about not forcing anything. 

When he saw that there were no more questions forthcoming, he popped her into one of Lucifer’s therapy sessions where he was explaining about the flaming sword and his plan to kick his mother into heaven and then take off. “But he didn’t…”

God shook his head. “No. Thankfully he didn’t or we wouldn’t be here having this conversation,” he chuckled. “But you’ll see. That conversation was mostly so that you could understand this.” He waved his hand again and they were in Lucifer’s penthouse as he tried to light the sword. She choked a sob at the pain she could see in his face as he tried and for once in this horrible trip was on Amenadiel’s side when he told off his mother for pushing him too hard. Even Amenadiel could obviously see that the issue definitely wasn’t Lucifer not feeling enough. 

Next they jumped through a couple of scenes in the mental hospital where God explained, “That belt buckle gave me a connection to him and I was able to feed him words and see through his eyes. I used it to tell Lucifer everything I wanted to, but it ended up backfiring.” 

Next was the whole debacle leading up to the scene on the beach. Chloe saw why Lucifer was so worried about her, and about his mother ending up getting shot when suddenly everything around her slowed to a crawl. “What…”

“I had to give Amenadiel a burst of power to resolve the situation. But only the one. He had to earn it back all the way,” God explained. “His gift is time just as Lucifer’s is desire.” 

“Oh…that…almost makes sense,” Chloe said, slightly less confused. 

She watched as Lucifer jumped off the pier with his mother and they landed in the sand, and she and God were suddenly standing next to them. “I'm sorry, Mum,” Lucifer said, holding the sword. “But I'm afraid that this ends now. You've hurt so many people, Mum. It has to stop.”

“You know that everything I've done, I've done for, for us, for our family,” she tried to reason with him. 

“You used me. Used Chloe,” Lucifer pointed out. 

“Me? What about your father? He created Chloe just to manipulate you. Lucifer, look. We have the sword. Finally, finally, we can get revenge. We can destroy him. We can take our home back,” she begged him. 

“I'm not leaving, Mum! Okay,” Lucifer yelled. 

“I can take care of it for both of us. Just give me the sword, and I'll do the rest. Please, son. I just I just want a chance to start over,” she pleaded.

“But going home? That's not starting over, that's that's going backwards. And that's not good for anyone. So it's time for you to move forward, Mum. Even if it means I'll never see you again,” Lucifer said sadly. Chloe felt bad for him, but couldn’t be sorry for her leaving. Not after the way she had jerked him around and lied to him so much. 

“Lucifer…”

“No!” he yelled, swinging the sword before looking in awe. “Bloody hell, it worked. I guess it can cut through anything, even the world itself.”

“What is that?” his mother asked. 

“It's-it's nothing. At least, for now. This is the real way to move forward, Mum. To create a whole new world, your own world, without Father.”

“But what about you? Amenadiel? My children?” she asked and Chloe could see that she at least cared a little bit. In a selfish way. 

“You know that if we go back to Heaven, then there will be a war. And in war, there are always casualties,” Lucifer told her. 

“The last thing I want is to hurt my children,” she admitted. 

“I know,” Lucifer said sadly. “So, please, let there be light.”

She sobbed out, “My angel. I will miss you so much,” before she held out a hand and light flowed into the rift. 

“I have never been more proud of Lucifer than I was at this moment,” God told Chloe. “He found a way to protect the entire world, without having to hurt anyone in the process.”

Chloe sniffled at the scene. “Yeah. That was pretty awesome,” she said with a smile.


	7. Chapter 7

Their next stop was when Lucifer was leaving her the voicemail promising to tell her everything and offer her the proof before he was kidnapped. “So he really was kidnapped…” 

“Of course he was. I can tell you with certainty that he has never lied to you,” God told her. “Whether you believed him or not.” 

“That’s why he always just said that I wouldn’t understand when it came to the big stuff,” Chloe realized. 

“Precisely. He knew that you never believed him and without that you would tie yourself up in knots trying to figure out his ‘metaphors’, if you didn’t get mad at him for using them in the first place.” 

“How did he get his wings back?” Chloe asked as she saw that part. 

“He felt, deep down, that he deserved them. He’d saved the world without bloodshed, was about to come completely clean with you. He felt good about himself for the first time in longer than I care to think about. That’s also why he lost what he calls ‘his devil face’.” God waved a hand and transported them to the lab at the precinct when he was obviously trying to show her something. 

“Why didn’t he just show me his wings then?” Chloe asked confused. 

“Because he felt like that would have been misrepresenting himself. While he did feel good about himself deep down, it was very deep. All that self-loathing was still too much a part of him to think of himself as an angel instead of the devil,” God explained. 

“Oh,” Chloe said sadly, looking down. 

There was a long series of quick scenes, including Lucifer finding out who Pierce was and that he was the sinnerman. Lucifer threatening Pierce not to hurt her, attacking him when he did, little things that made his feelings for her so obvious it hurt. The next longer scene, she found herself standing in Lucifer’s penthouse, the remains of the meal he made her on the table and she knew when it was. She had practically begged him for a reason, and he let her walk away. It seemed he was regretting it though, because he was sitting there drinking straight from a bottle, which was very out of character for him. 

No sooner than she processed all that, she saw Linda come in. “I'm so sorry. Ever since you left my office, I've been struggling between my role as your therapist and my concern for you as a friend. Friendship won. But too late, it seems,” she said sympathetically. 

“Well, I royally screwed up this time, Linda. Turns out I'm just as bad as our killer,” he said taking another long drink. It took Chloe a moment to remember what case they had been working at the time but then she understood what he meant. The guy that killed a ballerina to get close to another ballerina instead of just telling her how he felt. 

Linda, obviously, didn’t get it though. “Oh, God. You killed Pierce?

“No. No. But I did try everything to get that lovesick, former immortal out of the picture when really all I should've done was told the detective how I felt how I really feel,” Lucifer said morosely. 

“Then why don't you?” she asked. 

“I can't,” Lucifer said desperately. 

“What are you so afraid of? At first it was your devil face. What now? You don't want Chloe to see that you have wings? Who cares? 

“I do! I care!” Lucifer exclaimed. 

“Why?!” Linda asked impatiently. 

“Because she doesn't have a choice, does she? Neither do I! It's all part of His master plan to toy with us, to make us dance for His bloody amusement.”

“That's an excuse. Don't you see? You're doing the same thing as Him now. By not telling Chloe the truth, you're taking her choice away,” she told him. 

“Yeah! You go Linda!” Chloe cheered her on invisibly. 

“No, it's different,” Lucifer argued. 

“You know, the truth is no one really knows what your dad's responsible for. We're all just guessing. Even you. But you know the one thing He can't control? What you do in this moment right now. So I ask you, the Devil what do you truly desire?” Linda asked and Chloe chuckled before his next statement took her breath away. 

“I want her to choose me,” Lucifer said in almost a whisper. 

“Then tell her,” Linda urged. 

“Yeah, Lucifer. Just tell me,” Chloe said, tears welling up in her eyes as she saw him get up and head out. She knew that he hadn’t told her though and wondered what stopped him. She didn’t have to wonder long though as the next thing she knew, she was standing next to him outside her house watching Pierce propose to her and her saying yes and she could see him deflate in misery before he turned and walked away. 

“I didn’t know,” Chloe whispered. “If I had…” 

“Then nothing would have changed,” God told her. “Save perhaps that you wouldn’t have gotten so close to marrying Cain.”

That was enough to throw a figurative dose of cold water on Chloe as she remembered why they were doing this. Remembered what she had done, and she couldn’t deny that God was right. Having him for an extra couple weeks wouldn’t have changed anything when she found out. If anything it probably would have made it worse. 

The next thing she saw was Lucifer taking on her role in an investigation to see if he could figure out why she chose Pierce and when she saw him go off on Dan about him not being dependable and suddenly stop himself as he came to a realization that broke her heart. That wasn’t what she thought at all. Well, maybe in a way she did, yes, but not really. While it would be nice to have someone more dependable around, she loved Lucifer just the way he was. Quirky, flighty and all. 

The next scene she came in to hear him say, “you put away not one, but two bad guys today. All without my help. So it's become very clear that you well, you don't need me,” he said and she could see herself about to protest before he cut her off. “That's okay, Detective, because with that realization came another. If you don't need me, then we've been working together all this time because you want to. Because you choose to. You did choose me. You were right. I've been trying to go back to the way things were. You know, playing our greatest hits, because I've been avoiding dealing with things in the present like how I feel about you. I was afraid. Afraid that you'd want me 'cause you've only seen certain sides of me. That if you saw all of me knew all of me, you would run away,” he said, and the watching Chloe could feel the tears start to roll down her cheeks because he had been right. She had run away. And far worse besides. 

“Lucifer,” she heard herself say. 

“Detective, it's true,” he said clearly. The other side of me is it's bad. It's monstrous, even. But you wanted the truth, and you deserve the truth. Right now, I can't show it to you, so I'm just gonna have to tell you. Detective…Chloe…I am the Devil,” he said earnestly as the watching Chloe felt the tears come down faster. He had tried so hard. He had been practically begging her to believe him. To understand, but she hadn’t. 

“No, you're not. Not to me,” she watched herself say before kissing him and she wanted to slap herself silly because she had no idea. He had poured his heart out and she just brushed it off. She made him feel accepted and then ripped his heart out right after and she had never hated herself more. 

That thought came too soon though as the next scene was upon them and she watched Lucifer cover them in his wings. She saw the bullets hitting them, saw the blood, heard his scream of pain, and not once had he hesitated to shield her from the bullets. His face when she woke up on the rooftop told her everything about how he felt. Everything that she had seen a hundred times, but knowing what was coming right after…it tore her apart. Finally, she was taken along as he used his full power to take out all the gunmen and finally Pierce. This time though, she saw his face after she had turned and ran away and it faded back to his normal look. She saw the pain in his eyes and she hated herself for putting it there. 

She fell to her knees in pain and reached out for him only to find the scene had disappeared and she was back in the penthouse in the present and kneeling next to the drugged Lucifer on the floor. This time she could touch him and she did. She put a hand to his cheek and let out a sob. “I’m so so sorry, Lucifer.” 

“Do you understand now what you’ve done to him?” God asked. 

Chloe nodded. “Y-yes. I do. I-I’m so sorry. I wish I could take it all back,” she sobbed. 

“Well, luckily for you, you can. Well, not all of it. I don’t have enough power to go back to the day you saw his face, but I can go back to before you left Rome. You will have the chance to make different decisions. Or you can stay here, wait for him to wake up, and try to make it up to him. It’s your choice,” he offered. 

“Please. I want to go back. I want to undo all this,” Chloe begged. God nodded and the next thing she knew she was back in the hotel where she was staying in Rome. She looked at the clock and noticed it was nearly midnight and she cried herself to sleep, to wrung out to do anything else.


	8. Chapter 8

The next morning she woke up a little later than usual to find Trixie already munching out on the muffins they had for breakfast and she went over and grabbed Trixie in a big hug. The girl was confused, but happily hugged her mother back anyway. “Is everything okay, Mommy?” she asked worriedly. 

“It will be, Monkey,” she said hugging her a little tighter for a minute before letting go. “It will be.”

“Does that mean we can go home now?” she asked hopefully. She’d been wanting to go home for over a week now, but her mother kept telling her that she needed time to figure things out. 

“Yes, baby. I’ll call the airline today and get tickets as soon as we can,” she assured her after which they both ate a good breakfast and Chloe lapsed into silence, trying to make a plan on how to fix things. She had just ordered lunch when there was a knock on the door. “That was quick,” she said curiously as she went to open the door, only to see Father Kinley standing there instead of the food. 

“I was looking for you today, but you didn’t come. I was wondering if we could speak for a moment,” he said. 

“No, thank you,” she said closing the door in his face only for him to knock again. She sighed and opened the door again. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. “What?” she asked irritated. 

“It is a matter of the utmost importance. I ask you to please hear me out.”

“If I do, will you leave me alone?” she asked. 

“If that is what you wish, then yes,” he said and she almost smirked at how sure he seemed that she would rescind her request. 

“Fine,” she said stepping back and allowing him inside. She sent Trixie to the closed off bedroom and motioned the priest to sit. She sat through his spiel about how evil Lucifer was and how he needed to be taken out and then seemed to be waiting for a response. “No,” she said clearly. 

“Pardon?” he asked. 

“I said, no. Lucifer may be the devil but he is not evil and anyone who thinks he is obviously knows nothing about him,” Chloe told him. 

“He is the prince of lies,” the priest tried to reason with her. “He is a good actor, but you must know that it’s all an act.”

“Lucifer doesn’t lie. Ever. Now, I’ve heard you out as you requested, now you need to live up to your end of the bargain and leave. Now,” she said harshly, and the priest sighed sadly before getting up and leaving. 

He handed her his card on the way out though. “If you change your mind and wish my help, don’t hesitate to call.” Chloe just nodded and as soon as he was out the door, she ripped up the card and threw it away. Their flight would be leaving in the middle of the day tomorrow and she had no intention of leaving the hotel until then, just to be safe. 

As soon as the plane touched down in LA, Chloe called Dan to come get Trixie. She needed to talk to Lucifer and she knew that after being gone for a month that Dan would miss his daughter. By the time they had cleared customs and were walking out of the airport, Dan had arrived and asked her if she needed a ride anywhere. She asked him to drop her off at Lux and he grudgingly agreed. 

She looked around the half-full club for Lucifer and, not seeing him, she headed upstairs. As soon as she got out of the elevator, she could see that he hadn’t been doing so well. She hadn’t noticed the last time she came home, maybe because the first she’d seen of him had been at a crime scene where he naturally looked more put together, but maybe she just hadn’t been looking. His hair was all over the place, he had quite a bit more stubble than usual, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was wearing an open robe and silk sleep pants as he lounged on the couch with an open bottle of scotch next to him. At least there was a glass beside it too this time. 

Lucifer apparently hadn’t heard the elevator, because she had time to finish a thorough perusal of his current state before he noticed her and jumped up to sitting. “Detective! You’re back,” he said with a bright smile before it faltered. “How…how are you?” he asked worriedly. 

She smiled encouragingly at him and went over to sit next to him on the couch. “I’m sorry, Lucifer,” she said. 

“Sorry for what?” he asked. 

“For running away like that. You’d tried so hard to tell me for so long and I didn’t believe you, and then when I finally saw for myself…I panicked. I shouldn’t have,” she told him. 

Lucifer shook his head. “No, detective. I completely understand. I’ve had…millennia…to come to terms with what I am and I don’t know if I ever will. It would be unreasonable for me to expect you to process it so quickly.”

“But that’s just it, Lucifer. I /know/ what you are. You’re my partner. My friend. You’re still the same person you were before, and I’m sorry I forgot that for a while,” she said earnestly, reaching out a hand for his and he twitched like he was going to flinch away but stopped himself and looked down at her hand in wonder. 

“But I’m the devil,” he said pointedly. 

Chloe smiled and reached her other hand to his cheek. “Not to me you’re not,” she whispered, leaning forward and hoping against hope that she wasn’t pushing too hard too fast. When he met her lips and kissed her like he was drowning she relaxed and tangled her hands in his hair as his hands went to her cheeks. 

It only lasted for a minute before her phone rang and he groaned as he let her go, but she just reached into her pocket, turned it off without looking at it, and threw it onto the chair across the way, and pulled him in for another kiss. This one lasted until they both needed air and Lucifer rested her forehead against hers, noses brushing together as he tried to catch his breath. “I missed you,” he whispered. 

“Me too,” she replied. 

“I was so afraid…” he trailed off, too many ways to finish that sentence to choose one. 

“I know. I’m sorry,” she told him. She knew what he was afraid of, and the fact that what she did was so much worse than anything he feared had the guilt nearly swallowing her again, but she tamped it down and focused on the moment. “But I’m here now. No more running. For…for either of us? Please?” she asked hopefully, knowing that while hers was the worst, he had run from her more. 

Lucifer nodded, not taking his forehead away from hers. “No more running,” he agreed solemnly. 

Chloe grinned and gave him one more short kiss before turning and snuggling against his side, waiting until his arm had hesitantly settled around her before saying anything else. “I do have some questions though,” she said. God hadn’t given her a whole lot in the way of answers. 

“I expected as much. I shall be happy to answer any and all of them, detective. I’m glad there are no more secrets between us,” Lucifer told her. 

Chloe almost let out a sob at the familiar words from right before she betrayed him, but she held it back, resolving to speak to Linda on a more professional basis as soon as possible. She hadn’t seen much of her sessions with Lucifer, but she’d seen enough to know that she was good and if anyone could get her past this guilt it was her. “Well, the biggest question I have right now is about Maze. She’s a demon right?”

“She is,” Lucifer told her. 

“That actually explains a lot, but I still have to ask, especially with the way she’s been acting lately, but do you think she is safe around my daughter?” she asked. She hoped to work things out with Maze too, but not if it would be dangerous to Trixie. 

“She’s no less safe than she ever was,” Lucifer told her. 

“Well, no. I know that. It’s just…A lot of stuff happened before I left and she was…well…a mess. I guess my real question is more a matter of is she settled enough that I can trust her around my daughter.” 

Lucifer nodded. When put that way it made sense, and he pushed away his worry about her not really accepting them as the same people they were before she knew the truth. “That’s a valid question. I can’t honestly say how settled she is right now. I haven’t actually seen her since all of that, but I can say with certainty that she would never harm a child. Especially not /your/ child. Anything more than that you would have to talk to her.”

“Fair enough. I’ll make sure to do that. I just knew that you’ve known her for so long and didn’t know if you might have a little more insight.” 

“So who else knows about all this?” Chloe asked. 

“As far as humans go, only Linda. Charlotte did due to extenuating circumstances, and of course Cain…Pierce…did.”

“And Amenadiel is an angel,” Chloe said. 

“Yes,” Lucifer nodded. “He lost his powers for a long time, but he got them and his wings back around the time Charlotte died. He took her up to heaven himself.”

Chloe smiled. “That’s good. I’m glad,” she told him, leaning her head on his shoulder and lapsing into a comfortable silence. 

“You don’t have any more questions?” he asked confused. 

“Not right now, no. Is there anything else you think I need to know?” she asked, realizing that she was freaking him out a little bit but suspected that it was in a good way. She was trying to show that she accepted him as is. 

“Well…not specifically really, but…”

“But what?” she asked looking up at him. 

“I just expected a little more…I don’t know…”

Chloe smiled an reached a hand to his cheek. “You are who you are Lucifer. That’s all that matters. Devil or not. Am I curious? Yes, absolutely, but asking you to tell me ‘everything’ isn’t likely to be helpful,” she chuckled. “I don’t have anything specific I want or need to know right now, so I’m good.”

“Yes…well…don’t be afraid to ask if something comes up,” Lucifer said, more than a little off balance. 

“Actually…I do have one more question right now,” Chloe said, biting her lip nervously. 

Lucifer saw that and it was making him nervous too. “Anything.”

“What are we doing here?” When he looked at her confused, she explained. “I mean…you…me…US…Are we…together?”

“I would very much like us to be,” Lucifer admitted.

Chloe grinned and relaxed, tilting her head up to give him a short kiss. “I would very much like us to be too.” 

“Then that settles it then, I suppose,” Lucifer said with a bemused smile on his face. 

“That it does,” Chloe agreed. “But I do feel the need to point out…I don’t share,” she said pointedly. 

“That’s perfectly acceptable to me, detective,” Lucifer promised. Monogamy wasn’t something that he was familiar with, but she had accepted him, devil face and all, and he would give her anything she asked for after that.


	9. Chapter 9

Chloe and Lucifer sat there for a little while, curled up together on the couch, in a comfortable silence before Chloe sighed heavily. “What is it detective?” Lucifer asked. 

“I should really get home and unpack, not to mention get a good night’s sleep. Jetlag is a bitch,” she said turning her face into his neck to show that she didn’t really want to go, no matter how much she needed to. 

“You haven’t even unpacked yet?” Lucifer asked, surprised that coming to see him was so high on her priorities. 

“I haven’t even been home yet,” she chuckled. “I came straight here from the airport.” 

Lucifer’s smile widened and he leaned down to kiss her softly. “Then, my dear detective, I suppose you should go home and take care of things.” 

She melted into the kiss and then nodded at his words. “Yeah. But I do have a little bit of time while I wait for an Uber,” she told him, reaching for her phone to schedule it. After she picked up her phone she noticed that the call she missed was from Ella and made a mental note to call her back before she crashed. The five minutes before she had to go downstairs was spent attached to Lucifer’s lips before he helped her carry her luggage down and load it up in the Uber. 

“Will you be back at work tomorrow or are you going to take a few days to rest up after your trip?” Lucifer asked curiously. 

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” she assured him. “See you then?” 

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world, detective,” he kissed her one more time before she got into the Uber and drove off. 

Lucifer headed back upstairs and plopped down on the couch, trying to make sense of how quickly his fortunes seemed to have turned. Two hours ago he had thought that he would be miserable for the rest of his life and now he was actually, dare he say it, happy. 

The next day, Lucifer showed up at the crime scene with a new spring in his step, and headed over to Chloe. The only outward mark of a change in their relationship was the hand he placed on her lower back as he came up and she turned to smile brightly at him. The finished the interviews and processing the crime scene and headed back to the precinct. 

Chloe knew who the murderer was already, of course, but she still needed the proof and the paper trail leading to him. Both for the file and to not arouse suspicions. Only the fact that no one else would die in the process kept her following the script, at least mostly. When she found Lucifer explaining his origins to Ella in the lab, she laughed this time, and when he leaned over and asked, “Isn't this fun, Detective? We can both be in on the joke. You can watch humans twist themselves into pretzels to justify what I tell them instead of considering the most obvious answer,” Chloe just grinned and nodded. “Yeah. It is pretty fun.”

Chloe followed the case the same as she did last time, and didn’t even hold Lucifer back from attacking the Marshall who was following them though, like last time, grudgingly made him stop once the badge became obvious. She did make sure to arrive at the pool sooner than last time, putting the last piece of the puzzle in place sooner to hopefully avoid too much trauma to that poor woman. Unfortunately it didn’t help much, since apparently the Marshall liked to monologue for a long time before he did the deed, so she was already tied to the chair and it happened just like last time. Chloe jumped in the pool to save Lenore while Lucifer went after the bad guy. 

This time she didn’t pause when she saw him holding the truck and the light pole bending behind him. She just went up and pointed her gun at him and got him out of the vehicle. “You don't understand. I'm not the bad guy here. I've watched all these criminals for years, living happy lives, being rewarded for the terrible things that they did,” the Marshall protested. 

“Lenore did nothing wrong,” Chloe told him, somewhat remembering this conversation, but not exactly. She was sure that it had happened by the pool last time though. 

“Oh, didn’t she? She forgave him. Even when he was exactly the same monster he'd always been. You saw what he did to the guy at the farmers' market. They never change.”

Lucifer jumped into the conversation there, and Chloe could see just how much this affected him and she couldn’t believe she had been so blind as to miss it last time. “So maybe he slipped up. We all do sometimes. But at least he was trying to make a better life for himself. And you stole it.”

Chloe reached out and put a hand on Lucifer’s arm once the killer was secured and gave him an understanding look and Lucifer faltered. He looked like he wasn’t sure what to do now and that broke Chloe’s heart. The fact that he was so baffled by understanding just drove home how broken he was. 

Once they got the killer back to the station, Lucifer turned to Chloe. “I know it’s late, but you’re welcome to come by the penthouse for a while.” 

Chloe smiled brightly up at him, happy that he wanted to spend more time with her. “I would love to, but I’m completely exhausted. I’m still trying to get over the jet lag.” When she saw him mask his disappointment, she changed her mind. “But Trixie is at Dan’s for a few days, so I guess as long as you don’t mind if I end up falling asleep on you…”

“I don’t mind at all, detective, but are you sure you’d feel safe enough to sleep around me?” Lucifer asked almost confused. 

Chloe decided to just play it off and not make a big deal out of it. At least not here, so she just laughed. “It’s not like I’ve never fallen asleep at your place before.”

Lucifer chuckled and nodded and they headed out. She followed him back to the penthouse so she would have her car there and they headed up. “Are you hungry, detective?” Lucifer asked heading to the kitchen. 

“A little bit, but I’d much rather just relax with you,” she told him, going over to the couch and prompting him to follow. Once he sat down, she curled up at his side and threw her legs over his lap, leaning her side against his chest. “Much better,” she sighed contentedly as his arms slowly came up around her. 

“I hope I didn’t scare you when I grabbed the truck and all there. I know my eyes probably…” 

Chloe cut him off. “Lucifer. I’m not afraid of you. At all,” she assured him. 

“But I’m a monster, detective. How can you forgive me for that?” he asked, the case still weighing on him. 

“No, Lucifer. You aren’t a monster. You are a good man who has been through a lot of bad stuff. That doesn’t make you a monster,” Chloe told him. 

“You don’t know what I’ve done,” he said hauntedly. 

“You’re right. I don’t know everything you’ve done in all the millennia you’ve been alive, but what I do know is this,” she put a hand over his heart. “I know who you are and that’s far more important than anything you’ve done.” When she saw the tears welling up in his eyes, she decided that she’d succeeded in her task and just laid her head on his shoulder. She knew that he needed time to think about that so she didn’t say anything more. She hadn’t quite intended to fall asleep so quickly, but once she was relaxed and comfortable she hadn’t had any control over it. 

Lucifer didn’t notice that Chloe had fallen asleep until he heard her snore softly and he looked down at her in awe. She had no idea just how special she was. He smiled and kissed her head before whispering, “I love you, Chloe,” trying the words out when he knew she wouldn’t hear them. He sat there like that for a few more minutes before sliding an arm under her knees and carrying her to his bed. He had intended to go sleep on the couch, not wanting to push anything and risk messing things up now that he was so close, but she didn’t let go of him and whimpered when he tried to break her grip so he just climbed into bed next to her and held her, hoping against hope that he wasn’t going to regret this in the morning.


	10. Chapter 10

The next morning, Chloe woke first, surprised to find that her pillow was breathing before she remembered last night and she smiled. Her arm over Lucifer’s stomach moved up to rest her hand on his chest and she absentmindedly started tracing patterns on his skin that was bared by the top few buttons on his shirt being undone. 

Lucifer stirred awake, feeling something tickling his chest and he instinctively turned to bury his face in the head of hair on his shoulder before he realized whose hair it was, and his eyes snapped open. “Detective!” he exclaimed worriedly. “I’m sorry. I had just intended to put you into bed and go elsewhere, but…”

Chloe rolled her eyes and silenced him with a kiss. “It’s okay Lucifer. Really. It’s not like you took advantage of me in my sleep or anything. All our clothes are even still on.” She could see the tension drain from his body as he relaxed. “This is a nice way to wake up,” she told him, turning to press a kiss to his shoulder as his hand came up to hold hers on his chest. 

Lucifer, once again, found himself wondering how he had managed to get so lucky, and couldn’t stop himself from making a joke. “It’ll be even nicer when we get to do this without all the pesky clothes in the way.” 

Chloe laughed. “I don’t doubt that a bit. And maybe if you’re lucky, one day you might find out,” she teased playfully before pressing one more quick kiss to his lips and getting up for the bathroom. Lucifer just stared after her for a second before a laugh fell from his lips and he got up to start getting changed for the day. 

Lucifer had just gotten a new pair of his boxer briefs on when Chloe came out of the bathroom and stopped short at the sight of him in almost all his glory. It was nothing she hadn’t seen before, but somehow it was different now. Lucifer heard her footsteps stop and turned to look at her as he started pulling his pants on and his wink snapped her out of her trance. “Right…um…I need to go back home and change before work.”

Lucifer covered up his disappointment, but not fast enough. “I was hoping to make us a nice breakfast,” he did say.

“Well…my jeans and bra would be okay for another day, but I definitely need new underwear and a shirt. 

Lucifer walked over to a drawer in his dresser and opened it, showing a variety of women’s underwear. At her disgusted look he explained. “None of these have ever been worn. The worn ones are elsewhere. I always keep a spare stash in case of emergencies.”

Chloe looked undecided for a minute but finally shrugged. If they’d never been worn she supposed it would be okay. “Okay. That doesn’t help with a shirt though,” she pointed out, knowing that any clothes he had left over from his conquests would be very much not her style nor appropriate for her to go to work in. 

“I have an entire closet there, detective,” he waved his hand towards it. “Just pick one.” 

“You…want me to wear…your shirt?” she asked, eyes widening. Not only was he very particular about his clothes, but wearing his shirt to the precinct would be a neon sign about the change in their relationship. 

“Why not?” he asked, and she realized that he hadn’t considered that fact, but she also realized that he was unlikely to care, so all that mattered was whether she was ready to broadcast their relationship. It only took a moment’s thought to decide that she was. She was done holding back here, and he had promised her an actual relationship, so she was going to take it. 

“Okay. That works. I’ll just go jump in the shower then,” she told him, grabbing a pair of underwear from the drawer and deciding to grab a shirt when she got out. 

“I’ll have breakfast ready when you get out,” he promised and headed to the kitchen after giving her one more happy kiss. 

After Chloe got out of the shower, she dressed in everything but a shirt and went to look through his closet. She was torn between two, a purple one and a blue one, and grabbed them both and headed out of the bedroom and held them up on either side of her. “Which one?” she asked him, forcing herself not to blush at standing there in her bra. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen her naked before either and she knew that they would end up sleeping together, probably sooner rather than later, though she didn’t want to jump right into bed. 

Her thoughts had been running too fast in her mind to notice the gobsmacked look on Lucifer’s face for about two seconds before he snapped out of it and tilted his head like a fashion critic. “Mauve,” he finally said. Chloe scrunched up her face and looked at the shirts confused, and Lucifer laughed. “The purple one,” he explained. 

She chuckled at her own ignorance and went to put the blue one back and came back out still buttoning up the purple one as he was putting the omelets and bacon on plates. “I thought about making pancakes too, but they take a little longer and I know you don’t like heavy breakfasts,” Lucifer explained. 

“This is perfect, Lucifer. Thank you,” she told him happily. The fact that he had noticed her breakfast preferences just reinforced her knowledge that she’d made the right decision and it never failed to amaze her all the little things that he had noticed over the years. 

As they ate, they chatted about their day. “Are you coming into the precinct today?” Chloe asked. 

“If we get a case, of course,” he told her. “Until then I’m a little behind on the books for Lux, so I was going to try and catch up a bit.” 

“Yeah, okay. If you need some time, I’m sure I can handle any cases without you,” she offered, hoping he didn’t take her up on that. 

“Not at all. There’s nothing urgent that needs to be done here, so I’d be more than happy to help with any cases. The books can always wait a few days.” 

Chloe smiled happily, and nodded. “Okay. Then I’ll call you if we get a crime scene,” she promised as she finished the last of her breakfast.

Before she could get up and take the plate to the sink, it was grabbed from her hand. “I’ve got it. You’re going to be late if you don’t hurry. Traffic from here is a little worse than from your apartment.” Chloe looked at the time and realized that he was right and gave him a long lingering kiss before heading out, floating on air the entire way into the precinct. 

Chloe ran into Maze as she was walking in and the demon stopped her. “Decker! You’re back.” 

“Yeah, I got back the night before last. I’m sorry I didn’t call, but it’s been crazy since then and I wasn’t sure where we stood really after…everything that happened,” Chloe said with an apologetic shrug. 

“How’s Trixie?” Maze asked worriedly. 

Chloe knew what she was asking. “I think she’s forgiven you, if that’s what you’re asking, but you still owe her an apology and an explanation.”

Maze nodded. “Yeah. Okay. Maybe tonight I can come by?” she asked. 

“She’s actually with Dan for the rest of the week, but maybe Saturday you can come by and we can all hang out,” Chloe offered. 

Maze nodded, and now that the important stuff was out of the way she took a good look at Chloe and tilted her head at the sight of the shirt that was obviously too big on her. Maze then surprised Chloe by leaning forward and giving a long sniff to the collar of the shirt. “I thought I recognized that shirt. It’s Lucifer’s,” she said accusingly. 

Chloe blushed brightly, but didn’t hesitate to admit, “Yeah. I kinda…stayed there last night, and didn’t have a change of clothes, so…”

Maze stomped her foot. “Damnit Decker. You just lost me five hundred bucks,” she said petulantly. 

“What? How?” Chloe asked, assuming it was for a bet, but not knowing what the bet was. 

“I totally had you pegged for a complete freak out that would take at least six months to recover from,” Maze told her unashamedly before muttering, “Damn Linda’s always right.”

Chloe forced away the fresh wave of guilt that Maze would have won the bet if it hadn’t been for the divine intervention and just laughed. “Lucifer is still Lucifer, no matter what else he is,” she told the demon. She definitely wasn’t going to admit her greatest shame to anyone. “Just like you’re still Maze, demon or not,” she added and only the fact that she was looking for it allowed her to see the flash of emotion in the demon’s eyes before they continued into the precinct.


	11. Chapter 11

Chloe had considered trying to do something to stop the murder that hit her desk a couple hours later, but resolved herself to the fact that there was nothing that she could do. Even if she’d had a good excuse, it was still a closed set, and getting caught sneaking into a place where a murder was taking place would be a very bad thing. That didn’t stop the wave of guilt that washed over her when the file hit her desk, but she was getting very good at pushing all her guilt to the side and carrying on like it was nothing. At least this would be the last case she had future knowledge of. 

She texted Lucifer the address of the crime scene and he arrived about the same time she did. Neither of them noticed the wide-eyed look Ella got when she got a look at them, and they just focused on the scene. As soon as she got a chance away from Lucifer, Ella leaned over and whispered in Chloe’s ear, “Don’t think I don’t know whose shirt you’re wearing. You owe me details later.”

Chloe blushed brightly but nodded. “There aren’t a lot of those yet,” she admitted. 

Ella just grinned even wider at that fact. She’d known that something really special was between those two and if Chloe had slept at Lucifer’s house and was wearing his clothes, but they hadn’t actually had sex…well that was not something that Lucifer was known for. Ella did resist the urge to squeal when she overheard Lucifer ask Chloe on a date that night. 

Chloe was tempted to say no to focus on the case, but then she remembered that she had done that last time. Or more like said yes and then cancelled to focus on the case, but that was beside the point. She knew that they wouldn't get a break until tomorrow, so she could spare the time. 

Ella couldn’t contain her squeal later on when Lucifer showed her the dress he had gotten for Chloe to wear on their date that night. “Oh, my gosh! You bought this for Chloe?” Lucifer just hummed in agreement. “That is so romantic, Lucifer! It's just like Indecent Proposal.”

“Well, I was thinking more like Pretty Woman, but yes,” he drawled. “We're going to the opera. There's a special engagement of La Traviata in San Francisco. We leave by helicopter at sunset.”

“Wow,” Ella said breathlessly. “That is going to be the best date ever.” She wouldn’t admit how jealous she was right now. What she wouldn’t give for someone to love her like that. 

“Well At least I hope it is, 'cause if it isn't…” Lucifer cut himself off. 

“What?” Ella asked encouragingly. 

“If it isn't, I'm afraid that she might disappear again,” Lucifer finally admitted. 

Ella resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Dude, she is so hooked on you, you’re blind if you don’t see it. She’s wearing your shirt. Here. For the whole world to see. If that isn’t a sign then I don’t know what is,” she assured him. 

Lucifer felt a little more hope at her words. He hadn’t even considered the implications of her wearing his shirt and her hesitation when suggested it was explained now, but she had still chosen to do it. Was it just to spare his feelings though? “Perhaps you’re right Ms. Lopez. I’m just…”

“You’re nervous. I get it. And she’s probably just as nervous as you are,” Ella told him before launching into a series of ribald jokes, making him laugh and forget about his nerves. He had to admit that she was a very good friend. 

Once they had gotten as far on the case as they could for the day, Lucifer followed Chloe home in her car then drove her back to the penthouse where they would be leaving from. He had no intention of pushing anything physical on what was their first official date, so he was going to take her home after. Once they were upstairs he revealed the dress. “Lucifer it’s beautiful,” she gasped. And had a lot more material than she expected, she didn’t say. 

“Yes, well, I didn’t have time to have it tailored to your specifications so it’s just off the rack, but it is your size,” he told her and earned a kiss for his troubles. 

“It’s perfect,” she assured him and went to change in his room. Lucifer was just adding a vest and bow tie to his ensemble, so he did so in the living area. Once she was ready, they had time for a glass of wine before they took the elevator the rest of the way to the roof. “I’ve never been up here before,” Chloe told him. “Is that…a helicopter pad?” she asked in awe. 

“Yes. It is,” Lucifer told her just as the helicopter approached. “And there’s our ride.”

“Where are we going?” 

“You’ll see,” Lucifer said with a nervous smile as the helicopter landed and he helped her into it before climbing in beside her. Due to the noise, conversation wasn’t exactly possible unless they wanted to put on those hideous headsets, and neither of them cared enough to bother as Chloe just leaned against him. When his arm came up around her shoulders, she sighed happily and laid her head on his shoulder and he leaned his head against hers as they passed the short flight in a happy silence. 

Chloe was awed by the opera house and enjoyed the show greatly. It wasn’t something that she did often or would want to do often, but every now and then it was nice. It was the perfect first date. When they went to a fancy French restaurant for dinner though, she still felt the need to say, “You know you don’t have to go to all this trouble, right Lucifer?” 

“What? You don’t like it?” he asked worriedly. 

She reached across the table and took his hand. “No. I love it. Really. It’s wonderful. It’s just…I don’t want you to feel like you HAVE to pull out all the stops for me. I mean, as great as all this is, it wouldn’t be as special if we did it all the time, and I’m just as happy to spend a quiet night at home with you.”

Lucifer relaxed a great deal at that. “Perhaps. But for a first date, it seemed appropriate.”

“Yeah. I get that,” she said squeezing his hand and threading their fingers together. “As long as you know you don’t have to impress me.”

“Thank you Det…Chloe,” he responded, feeling the last of his nerves and worry falling away. 

The helicopter ride back was spent much the same as the first, though with quite a bit of kissing interspersed throughout the trip. This time they landed at the nearest helicopter pad to her apartment, which was a few blocks away, and he led her down the elevator to the waiting Limo to take them the rest of the way. He walked her to the door, and kissed her softly and slowly before taking a step back and whispering, “Goodnight, Chloe.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Chloe offered. “You could come in…”

Lucifer smiled wryly and gave a half-laugh. “As much as it pains me to refuse, I find I must. I wouldn’t want to cheapen this night by accepting,” he told her, placing a hand to her cheek. “You are special, Chloe, and I fully intend to prove that to you before taking that step.” 

Chloe sucked in a sharp breath, shocked and touched that he turned her down and she felt her eyes welling up with tears. “You are special too, Lucifer. Thank you,” she said, heartfelt as she kissed him one more time before heading inside. 

Lucifer headed back to the limo which was going to take him back to Lux, both congratulating himself for his control and hating himself for it. Only the fact that he knew that it would pay off in the end stopped him from going back up there. 

Chloe went inside and looked in the full length mirror in the bathroom for a little while, twirling around in her dress. She had never felt more like a princess than she had tonight, and Lucifer walking away at her blatant invitation just made it even more so. He couldn’t have proven any clearer that he respected her and wanted them to go the distance. He may not have said the words, but his commitment to her was more than obvious and she decided that on their next date, she would say the words that had been on the tip of her tongue so many times since she had gotten back. He had earned it. 

Lucifer got home and went upstairs, making himself a drink and sitting down at the piano. He had just been playing without paying any attention to what, but when he noticed that it had morphed into ‘Show Me Your Soul’ from Pretty Woman, he wasn’t particularly surprised.


	12. Chapter 12

The next day, when they found the girl who seemed good for the murder, Chloe tried to find a way to avoid everything that happened, but it didn’t work. The only actions she could have taken would have been far too suspicious. If it was a matter of saving someone’s life, she would have done something, suspicious or not, but no one had been hurt. She tried to keep Lucifer out of the building before it blew up, but like last time, she had been distracted and he’d slipped off when she wasn’t looking. She wasn’t nearly as panicked this time when it happened, at least, but some worry was unavoidable as she rushed towards him to make sure he was okay. 

She felt a sense of satisfaction as the girl was arrested, and easily accepted Lucifer’s offer of dinner, agreeing to meet him at his place at seven, determined that this time would go differently than the last. She intentionally chose a different outfit to wear and was greeted by the same smile and words of, “Detective, you look beautiful.”

“Thank you,” she said with a smile as she walked in. 

“Please, sit,” he invited as he walked over to the bar where he had the covered plates. “I made you grilled cheese. Your favorite. And not the smelly, fancy stuff. Just the yummy orange kind that you like,” he babbled slightly as he set the plates in front of them and poured the wine. 

Chloe laughed at his obvious nerves, trying to cover up her own as she sat. “It’s perfect,” she told him. This whole thing was tearing her apart inside, and she had considered begging off, but she was determined to do this right this time. 

“Oh! Sorry. Silly me. I forgot the music. I made a playlist full of bad '90s jams for you,” he said as he got up and headed into the bedroom to turn the music on. Chloe took a sip of her wine to steady her nerves, but as the music came on loudly it startled her…again…and she dropped her glass and it shattered. 

“Oh crap!” she said starting to clean it up as Lucifer came back in. 

“Sorry. I didn’t realize I’d left it so loud…” he trailed off as he saw the broken glass and went over to pull her away. “It’s okay. I’ll get it,” he offered. 

“No, I’m sorry. I can do it,” she told him, unable to believe how ridiculous it was to be startled by the same thing twice. As they both tried to get the glass up, Lucifer ended up with a cut on his hand. “Oh no. I’m sorry. Come here,” she said pulling him over to the bar.

“I’m fine,” he assured her. 

“You’re not fine. You’re bleeding,” she told him grabbing something to clean the wound and then she realized that she shouldn’t know that he was only vulnerable around her yet, so she took the opportunity to ask him. “How is it that sometimes you bleed and sometimes you don’t?” she asked gently. “I mean, you walked out of an explosion without a scratch, but now you were cut by a little piece of glass. What’s the difference?” 

“You are, Detective. I don't fully understand why, but I'm only vulnerable when I'm close to you,” he told her softly, reaching his good hand to her cheek as she bandaged the cut. 

She looked up at him as she finished, and got lost in his eyes. “So it-it’s my fault,” she said sadly. 

“No, Chloe,” he almost whispered, feeling his heart threatening to beat out of his chest at what he was about to say. “It’s not your fault. It’s just because I…” 

He was cut off by Chloe’s phone ringing. She almost turned it off, but then she saw that it was the precinct calling so she gave him an apologetic look and answered. When she realized that they had the wrong person and who the killer might be, she told Lucifer and the two of them headed back to the crime scene. Lucifer distracted the killer while Chloe looked for the evidence and they managed to get him without any further fuss and get a full confession from him in the process. 

Once they had him dropped off, it had only been about an hour and a half since they’d gotten the call. “Shall we continue our evening?” Lucifer suggested. “We never did get to eat.”

Chloe smiled brightly, glad that tomorrow was Saturday so she wouldn’t have to worry about a late night. “Yeah. That sounds good.”

This time they had ridden together so the did the same back to Lux and headed back upstairs. “I’ll need to remake the grilled cheese, unfortunately, but that shouldn’t take long.”

“It’ll take even less time if we do it together,” Chloe said, following him into the kitchen. 

Once they sat back down with the food, Lucifer poured them some more wine and turned the music back on and they picked up where they left off before the glass breaking. It seemed that the seriousness of the moment that was interrupted was lost though, because the meal was spent with casual conversation. 

Once they were done eating, Chloe decided to take the bull by the horns. As Lucifer was coming back from taking the plates to the sink, she stopped by the bar, setting her glass of wine on it, and said, “Before Ella called, you were about to say something,” she said. 

“I was?” Lucifer asked cryptically. 

“You were. About…about why I make you vulnerable,” she prompted. 

Lucifer took a deep breath and closed his eyes as he gathered up his courage. When he opened his eyes, he looked deep into hers and said, “You make me vulnerable because I…because I love you.” 

“Lucifer,” she whispered, tears in her eyes as she reached a hand to his cheek. “I-I love you too.” She hadn’t expected those words from him so soon. Maybe not even at all. She had expected something more vague about his feelings for her like he had admitted just before Charlotte was killed and everything fell apart, but this…he’d said it first. She closed her eyes against the tears as he pulled her in for a passionate kiss and melted into it. 

Chloe plastered herself tightly against Lucifer as their kiss went on, and it didn’t take much time at all before she felt him harden against her stomach, which sent a burning heat through her and she moaned into the kiss, lifting her leg to wrap around his waist, needing to feel him against her more fully. That caused a moan to pull from his throat as he slid a hand down her side and lifted her other leg and supported her weight as her legs gripped him tightly. 

Lucifer took a few steps and set her on the piano, moving his lips across her jaw and to her neck as she started unbuttoning his shirt. Lucifer managed to pull himself away, though not far and took both of her hands in his, looking her in the eyes. “Chloe, are you sure?” he asked, not wanting her to feel pressured into anything. 

She was breathing heavily, trying not to just jump him again, at least not until she answered the question. “Yes, Lucifer. I’m sure,” she said seriously, meeting his gaze steadily, and the next thing she knew, he was back in the position he’d vacated, one hand sliding under her shirt as he nibbled and sucked on the sweet spot on her neck. She moaned, moving her hands back to his shirt and rolling her hips forward against his length, pulling a moan from him as well as his hands found and unclasped the back of her bra before one of them moved around to caress her breast. 

She pushed his shirt off his shoulders and he stepped back enough to strip hers over her head before he was kissing her again at the same time he finished removing her bra and threw it to the side. He lifted her, not breaking the kiss and carried her to the bedroom, laying her down and sliding over top of her. Chloe ran her hands over every inch of his body she could reach as he hid the same with one hand, while the other played with her breasts in a way that just drove her higher and higher into the passion. 

By the time her hands moved to start undoing his pants, his lips were trailing over her shoulder and he took the hint and moved his hands to her pants as well before he moved off her to remove the remainder of their clothing and then he was back. He kissed her deeply, pressing his hard length against her core, but at all the wrong angle to enter her and she whimpered into the kiss needily. He removed his lips from hers, leaning their foreheads together and whispered, “Last chance to change your mind.”

“Please, Lucifer. Take me,” she panted. 

He closed his eyes and kissed her again as he slid inside her quickly with a choked moan. She threw her head back and arched off the bed, unintentionally tearing her lips away from his as she let out a keening moan. “Oh…Chloe,” he choked out as he began to move inside her. Lips and hands were like a blur as he managed to keep it going for about half an hour before an orgasm ripped through her body so hard she screamed in pleasure. The clenching around him was enough to tear his from him as well, and once they were spent, he stilled over her for a minute to catch his breath, but he wasn’t nearly done with her yet. 

Once he could breathe again, he kissed her long and deep as his hands resumed their trek over her body, along with his lips and teeth and tongue. The next time she came it was over his fingers. And then his tongue, before he slid back up her body and took her again, this time lasting much longer, and it wasn’t until she had cum over his cock for the third time that he let himself loose and followed her. This time, when he was done, he fell to the bed next to her, running a hand lightly over her body as they both panted for breath.


	13. Chapter 13

Lucifer was more than happy to lay there and look at her for a while to give her time to collect herself, and by the time she managed to speak, he was propped up on his elbow, with his hand still trailing over her body. “Wow,” she finally said, rolling to her side and reaching out to touch him too. “I definitely see what all the fuss is about now, Mr. Lucifer ‘best night of my life’ Morningstar. 

Lucifer chuckled and leaned forward to give her a short kiss, before laying on his back and pulling her against his side. “I certainly know what you mean. This was the best night of my life as well detective,” he said earnestly, before the emotion got to be a little much for him and he covered with a joke. “Even better than the night with the four porn stars and the…ouch,” he laughed as he was cut off with a playful slap. Chloe laughed along with him and shook her head at his antics, as he pulled her tighter against him in thanks. He knew that she knew what he was doing and accepted it, which gave him the green light to keep going. “You know, now that I think about it, I seem to remember someone saying once, that they would ‘never ever sleep with me. Not even if hell froze over,” he teased. 

“Well I am a woman. It’s my prerogative to change my mind,” she said imperiously. “But if I find out that all this was just a game to get me into bed, I will find a way to castrate you, devil or not,” she said with a grin, mostly joking. 

“Hey now. Threatening a guys manhood is below the belt,” he laughed. “Besides, you know I never lie, detective.” He rolled her onto her back and tickled her. 

“Okay Okay! I give! Uncle!” she choked out around her laughter, and he stopped and looked down at her with a grin before leaning down for another long deep kiss. 

Once the kiss broke, he left his forehead against hers and whispered, “I do love you, Chloe.”

“And I love you, Lucifer,” she whispered back, reaching up to run a hand through his hair. “I’m just sorry it took me so long to realize it.” 

“Me too,” he admitted, kissing her again before he laid back down and she rolled back against his side and it wasn’t long before they had both fallen asleep. 

The next morning, Lucifer woke first and grinned when he realized that Chloe was still here. Still naked, in his bed, pressed up against his side. He sighed happily and leaned his head against hers as his hand reached up to card through her hair. It didn’t take long for that to wake her up and she murmured a sleepy ‘morning’, as she turned her head to press a kiss to his chest. 

“And a very good morning it is, detective,” Lucifer said cheerily. 

Chloe chuckled before her eyes widened and she sat straight up, wincing as the abrupt movement caused Lucifer to pull her hair. “Oh crap! I have to go get Trixie from Dan’s and then meet Maze,” she said looking around frantically for the clock. 

“Calm down,” Lucifer said gently as he reached down to pick up the clock from where it had gotten knocked down last night. “It’s only ten. You have plenty of time.” Chloe relaxed at that. She’d been afraid it was much later. She still didn’t have a LOT of time, but she did have a little. “Now,” Lucifer drawled pulling her back down, “I can think of some things to pass that time very nicely.” He kissed her passionately and slid a hand down her body. 

She kissed him back for a minute, before she wrenched herself away, very close to losing control. “I really need a shower before I go. I don’t have time,” she said regretfully. 

“Hmm. Shower. Now there’s an idea,” Lucifer teased, hoping she took him up on the offer, but intending to back off if she didn’t. 

Chloe thought for a second before smirking. “It is, isn’t it,” she said, getting up and heading that way. Lucifer wasn’t sure if she meant it the way he did or not, until she looked back over her shoulder and said, “You coming or not?” 

Lucifer grinned and scrambled out of bed to follow her. “Not yet, darling, but I’m sure it won’t be long.” Lucifer, thankfully for Chloe, was rather practiced at shower sex, even when his partner needed to actually wash. He had her leaned up against the wall of the shower, her hands gripping his back and shoulders as she moaned, while his hands lathered up her hair, before he pulled her away from the wall and turned her under the water to rinse it, and when his hands roamed every inch of her body after, the just happened to have a soaped up loofa in them. He would have loved to drag it out longer, but he knew that she was tight on time, so he brought them both to release after about twenty minutes and by then she just had the one part of her body to wash that had been otherwise occupied. 

Chloe was more than a little impressed at his skill in multi-tasking as she kissed him deeply again before stepping out of the shower to start drying off while he gave himself a quick wash. She was just finishing towel drying her hair as he stepped out, grabbing a towel of his own while she began the hunt for her clothes. It took her about ten minutes to find everything and throw it on and by then she really had to go. “Are you busy tonight?” Lucifer asked as she was leaving. 

“Actually, we were gonna have a girl’s night tonight,” she said apologetically. 

“Okay. What about Sunday?” he asked. 

“Well I was gonna spend the day with Trixie, but you’re welcome to come by and we can break out the monopoly board or something,” she offered, happier than she could say when he grinned and agreed. 

“I’ll bring lunch,” he promised, before kissing her as she rushed out the door. 

By the time Chloe got home, Maze was already there and they spent the afternoon repairing their relationships. Chloe tried to ignore the knowing smirks that Maze kept sending her after she had theatrically sniffed the air, but nothing was said thanks to Trixie’s presence. She knew that wouldn’t hold up once the babysitter showed up at bedtime and they headed out with Linda, but for now she was grateful for the reprieve. 

Linda showed up about ten minutes after the babysitter and she looked like she’d been through the ringer. “Linda? Are you okay?” Chloe asked worriedly. 

“I’m pregnant,” she blurted out, looking very much on the verge of panic. 

“Oh…wow…um…who’s the father?” Chloe asked as Maze just looked shocked. 

“Amenadiel,” she said, looking apologetically at Maze. 

“A-amenadiel? B-but, isn’t he an angel?” Chloe asked feeling her own panic starting to well up inside her and when Linda nodded, Chloe turned white. “E-excuse me. I…I need to…make a call…before we go,” she stammered before she rushed out of the room, grabbing for her phone. 

Maze just burst into laughter as she rushed out and Linda looked confused which seemed override her panic. “She slept with Lucifer,” Maze whispered to Linda in explanation. 

Lucifer picked up the phone on the first ring. “Detective!” he said happily. “I didn’t expect to hear from you tonight.”

“Linda’s pregnant,” she blurted out in much the same way that Linda had. 

“Ah…I see…Congratulations?” he half-asked, not sure what the correct response was. 

“Amenadiel’s the father. I didn’t know that angels and humans could…I mean…should we have…I don’t know…used protection or…or something…could we…” She was beyond worried about this now. She knew that angels couldn’t suffer from human diseases which is why she didn’t see the need to bother despite his promiscuity, but this…hadn’t even crossed her mind. 

“Ah. I see the problem. No need to worry detective. I’m a responsible devil,” he assured her. 

“But…How? I mean…” she wasn’t completely reassured. 

“Amenadiel was only able to impregnate the doctor because of the fact that he was falling and was very close to human at the time. He had even caught a cold. I assure you that, short of a miracle, there is no way for us to end up in the same predicament.”

Chloe felt the pressure on her chest easing. “Okay. Good. I mean…not that I would object…eventually…someday, but…” 

Lucifer laughed. “Believe me, detective. I took no offense. I have no desire to procreate either.”

“Right. Yeah. Of course,” She said, breathing easily again. “Thanks Lucifer.”

“Anytime darling. Always happy to ease your mind,” he told her. 

“I love you,” she said. 

“And I love you, dearest,” he replied before they both hung up.


	14. Chapter 14

Lucifer hung up the phone and turned to Amenadiel with an amused smirk to see that his brother looked like someone had beaten him over the head with something. “Congratulations, Dad,” he teased his gob-smacked brother. 

“That is…I should…I need to go…talk to her…” Amenadiel got up in a daze and started heading for the elevator, but a laughing Lucifer just grabbed him and steered him back to his seat. 

“Oh, no you don’t. They’re having a girl’s night out and you shouldn’t interrupt them. Not to mention the fact that she doesn’t know that you know yet. At least wait until tomorrow. That will give you time to wrap your head around it too so you don’t show up in a panic,” Lucifer told him amusedly. When Amenadiel just sat back down and nodded, still looking lost, Lucifer burst into laughter again. “I hope you realize just how satisfying this is for me, brother. Me, the screw up rebel, sleeps with half the city and manages to be responsible, while you, the perfect big brother, have like two partners and get one of them knocked up with a Nephilim.” The fact that Amenadiel wasn’t even there enough to respond just amused Lucifer even more as he poured two tall drinks and handed one to his brother. 

It took about an hour before Amenadiel snapped out of it and changed the subject. “So it seems as though things are going well with you and Chloe.”

“They are actually. Very well. I’m still waiting for something, probably me, to screw it all up,” Lucifer admitted. 

“You should have more faith in yourself brother. And more faith in her,” Amenadiel told him. 

“I know you’re right. I mean, now that she’s seen my devil face and still accepts me…” 

Amenadiel cut him off. “Wait she’s seen your devil face? She knows? When did you even get it back?” He hadn’t been back on Earth for more than half an hour before the phone call came in and they hadn’t gotten that far in their conversation. 

“Yeah, I guess I didn’t mention that did I?” Lucifer chuckled. 

“No, Luci. You did not,” Amenadiel said irritated. That should have been among the first things he mentioned. 

“Well after you disappeared back home, Pierce…Cain…came after us. Apparently Charlotte had somehow figured out that he was the Sinnerman and Detective Douche found the file and he decided to shut us up.”

“That was my fault,” Amenadiel admitted. 

“What was?” Lucifer asked. 

“I’m the one who told Charlotte. She was helping me try to stop Chloe from marrying him. She was looking for proof.”

Lucifer nodded. He thought it was a stupid idea, but wasn’t going to say anything. Not right now anyway. “So anyway, he came after us, almost killed the detective, and then once I got her away, pulled one of Maze’s hell-forged blades on me. I was forced to kill him, which brought the devil face back. Unfortunately, the detective chose that moment to come back in, presumably to help me, and saw it.”

“And she is okay with it?” Amenadiel asked relieved. 

“She seems to be. I’m not a hundred percent sure that she hasn’t just blocked it out. At least she believes me about everything now,” Lucifer explained. 

“Well that’s great brother. I’m happy for you,” Amenadiel said, realizing that he actually did pass his test. 

“Yeah, we’ll see how long it lasts,” Lucifer said, still not believing that he could actually have happiness for more than a fleeting moment. 

Amenadiel reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t think like that Luci. It’ll last. I have faith.”

“Anyway,” Lucifer shrugged it off. “Now that you’re…well…all here again. Let’s head downstairs and get this party started.” 

Chloe came back to find Maze still laughing and even Linda looking amused. “I could have told you that you didn’t have anything to worry about.” 

Chloe blushed brightly as she realized that they had overheard her conversation. Or at least Maze had. Maybe it had been a demonic super-hearing thing. “Are you sure you’re up to going out tonight?” she asked Linda, wanting to change the focus of the conversation. 

“Oh yeah. Just because I can’t drink doesn’t mean I can’t have fun,” Linda told her, so they headed out. 

The rest of their night was spent between teasing Linda about the baby and teasing Chloe about Lucifer. There was also a lot of dissecting of his sexual skills and Chloe was reminded that both of her best friends had been previous lovers of his. She thought it should make her uncomfortable, but for some reason it didn’t. Maybe because they were both just accepting of the fact and treated it like it wasn’t a big deal. They ended up getting in around three in the morning and Maze crashed in her bed, having decided that afternoon that she was good to move back in. She would get her stuff moved back the next day. 

The next morning, Chloe woke up around ten thirty, glad that Trixie was old enough now to get her own breakfast and amuse herself for a few hours, and she downed some asprin for the hangover and drank a large glass of water before leaving the bathroom and heading downstairs. It was almost noon before Maze woke up and headed out to start packing her stuff. 

She’d only been gone for about ten minutes when Trixie asked, “What’s for lunch?” 

“I’m not sure,” Chloe told her, feeling much more human now. “Lucifer said he would bring something.”

“Lucifer’s coming over!” Trixie exclaimed happily as she started bouncing. 

“That I am, urchin,” Lucifer said, hearing her as he came in the door. 

“Yay!” Trixie said running over to Lucifer and hugging him around the middle as Lucifer raised his full hands and tried to squirm away before she finally let him go and he was able to proceed to the table to put the food down. 

Chloe laughed at him and headed over to see what he’d brought and he pulled her into a kiss, not realizing that Trixie didn’t know they were together. She didn’t have the heart to push him away though, knowing that he would take it as a rejection. It seemed that it was time for Trixie to find out. 

Lucifer was conscious of the underage audience and kept the kiss short and reasonably chaste and Chloe looked over at Trixie for her reaction only to find her beaming at them. “It’s about time,” Trixie exclaimed as she climbed up on a chair to start digging through the bags. “Zhang Chaos!” she said happily as she saw the food containers. 

After a rather boisterous lunch, thanks to the excited child, the monopoly board was broken out along with, to Lucifer’s dismay, the face paints. The fact that Trixie lost due to her habit of trading properties for permission to paint faces was but a small comfort to Lucifer who had all manner of designs on his face. Chloe’s looked just as bad, but she didn’t really mind. To add insult to injury, Maze returned with her stuff towards the end of the game and burst into laughter with one look at Lucifer, laying on the floor, lollipop hanging out of his mouth, with unicorns, rainbows, and stars all over his face. 

“Do you have something to say, Mazikeen?” Lucifer asked coldly with a glare, trying to be intimidating, but failing miserably this time. 

Maze was holding onto the wall, trying to keep herself upright. Even if she wanted to make a remark she couldn’t have gotten a word out anyway, so she just grabbed her phone and snapped a bunch of pictures before Lucifer jumped up and tried to take it away from her. She ran full speed for her room, jumping the couch in the process, and slammed the door just as Lucifer got to it. 

The devil was threatening to break down the door, when Maze finally found her voice and called out, “Too late! They’re uploaded to Instagram and Snapchat and texted to…well…everyone.” 

“Maze!” Lucifer yelled in irritation, hearing the laughter start again on the other side of the door. “You do know payback is a bitch, yes?”

“Oh I know. But for this…it’s more than worth it,” she called back. 

He grumbled and stomped back downstairs to find Trixie broken down in a fit of the giggles while Chloe looked at him in amused sympathy. “I guess I should have mentioned that Maze was moving back in today?” she said sheepishly. 

“That would have been appreciated, yes,” Lucifer mumbled irritably as he resumed his position on the floor. The damage was done now. He might as well finish the infernal game. Trixie was already out, and Chloe had enough sympathy on him to let him win. Afterwards, Maze ended up joining them for karaoke, ignoring the way Lucifer kept glaring daggers at her. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her in front of Chloe and Trixie.


	15. Chapter 15

Monday morning, Lucifer had just woken up when a priest suddenly showed up in his penthouse, claiming to be there about Chloe. Lucifer snorted and started pouring himself a drink. “Forgive me, Father for not offering you a drink. I have an aversion to the cloth. Daddy issues. Long story.

“I understand, and I do apologize for the intrusion, Mr. Morningstar. Please allow me to explain myself,” the priest said politely. 

“Excellent course of action,” Lucifer said waving his hand with the drink in it for the priest to get on with it. 

“You see, I'm not a normal priest.”

Lucifer laughed. “Was there ever such a thing?”

“I mean I'm not a normal priest in the sense that I don't have my own congregation. I'm an investigator. For the Vatican.”

“Vatican investigator? Sounds like a soon-to-be-canceled TV show,” Lucifer snarked. 

“I assure you, it's a very real job. I've spent the last 40 years traveling the globe in pursuit of the demonic. I know the divine is real. And I also know that evil walks the earth. And that you, Mr. Morningstar…” 

“Oh, boy, here we go,” Lucifer muttered under his breath

“Are not it,” the priest finished. 

“Not quite what I was expecting,” Lucifer said confused. “So if I'm not the devil, then why are you here? And what does any of this have to do with the Detective?”

“Because Miss Decker believes that you are,” the priest told him. 

“I see,” Lucifer said narrowing his eyes. 

“About a month ago, she came to Rome with a most outlandish tale. The devil himself is hiding in plain sight, masquerading as a nightclub owner in Los Angeles, and that he'd revealed himself to her.”

“Well this is wonderful news,” Lucifer said cheerfully even as he felt the icy hand of fear clench his heart. 

“Wonderful? How so?” It was the priests turn to be confused. 

“Well, as my therapist would say…I know, so LA…But she'd say that talking about your issues was the first step in dealing with them, so if the Detective did have issues with me sounds like they've been dealt with. Now, if that's everything, Father, you can be on your merry way,” Lucifer said dismissively. He really needed to be alone right now. 

“I just felt that it was my duty to warn you. Because the reason that she came to Rome was to, well send the devil back to hell.”

Lucifer laughed harshly. “The Detective would never do that.”

“Chloe is a good person with a good heart,” the priest said gently. 

“Finally, something we can agree on,” Lucifer said coldly. 

“But whatever she went through, whatever drove her to Rome it shook her to her very core. She's the reason that I'm here. You need to be careful, Mr. Morningstar. God knows what she has planned for you.” Lucifer froze as so many things started running through his head, and he barely noticed when the priest clapped him on the shoulder and left. He definitely didn’t notice the smirk on the priest’s face as soon as he was behind him. 

All Lucifer could think about was how Chloe knew now that she made him vulnerable. Was she planning to kill him? If so, then why would she be pretending to love him. Was it just to break his spirit when she finally turned? Was that why she suddenly seemed to be okay with him? But no. She wasn’t that good of an actress. At least he didn’t think she was. Then again, she had been one professionally for years before she became a cop. She could be. But what if it was all true? Would she really go so far as to sleep with him for this ruse? After resisting for so long? Maybe that was why. Maybe she just really needed to sell it. Maybe…

He was pulled out of his thoughts by the voice of the very one he was thinking about. “Lucifer, oh my god. Are you okay? What did he do?” 

Lucifer turned to look at her, examining her like a bug in a microscope. “What did who do?” 

“The priest,” she said. “I saw him coming out of the elevator as I was coming in. I hid so that he wouldn’t see me before rushing straight up. Did he hurt you?” she said worriedly reaching out for him and running her hands over his body as though looking for injuries. If she was right downstairs she would have been close enough for him to be injured after all. 

“So you admit that you know him,” Lucifer said, feeling all of his fears flare to life with new brightness. 

“I met him in Rome. He tried to convince me that you were evil and needed to be sent back to hell, but I told him that he was wrong and kicked him out. He must have decided to do something himself,” she said worriedly. 

Lucifer snorted and took a long swig of his drink as he turned away. “He didn’t hurt me. In fact, he had a rather interesting story.”

“What did he say?” Chloe asked and wondered if it had something to do with why Lucifer wouldn’t even look at her right now. God had said that the priest wouldn’t remember anything, but what if he was wrong?

“He told me that you came to him. That you said that I was the devil and /you/ asked for /his/ help to send me back to Hell. He said that he came here to warn me because he knew that I wasn’t the devil and didn’t want me to be hurt by you. He implied that you were planning to kill me,” Lucifer said, unable to even look at her as all his worst fears were aired. 

Chloe felt tears welling up in her eyes. He’d lied. The priest had lied to Lucifer and he believed it. He believed the priest…a stranger…over her. She walked around him and reached out for him, only for him to flinch away. “Lucifer, please. You can’t believe that. You can’t believe that all this between us is a lie. I love you, Lucifer. He’s lying. I swear to you, he’s lying.” 

“Why? Why would he lie?” Lucifer asked, almost begging for a reason to believe her. 

“I don’t know, Lucifer. I really don’t. Maybe he’s just trying to hurt you. To come between us. Maybe it’s revenge against me for not going along with his ridiculous plan. I don’t know, but you have to believe me,” she begged, tears running down her face. 

“I…don’t know what to believe right now,” he admitted. “I just…need time to think.” 

Chloe nodded, tears still streaming down her face. “Okay. If that’s what you need, then okay.” She didn’t know what more she could say to convince him. Especially since she had no intention of actually lying to him by saying that she would never do that to him like she had tried to before God intervened. Anything more she said about this would skirt too close to that secret. “But I do love you. And all this between us is completely real. I…I hope you realize that soon.” 

“What were you coming here for anyway?” Lucifer asked, knowing that it was past time for her to be at work. 

“We have a crime scene and Lux was on the way so I figured I’d come pick you up, but if you’re not up to it, I understand.” 

“No. I’m good. It is my job, after all. One of them anyway,” he said, downing the last of his drink and grabbing his coat, heading into the elevator without looking back. 

It was a long and difficult day, but once they reached a stopping point where they had to wait for a warrant, Lucifer headed out, without a word to anyone and made straight for the church. He had figured out a way to get the truth once and for all. Mr. Morningstar, thank you for reaching out. Are you okay? Did Detective Decker…Did she do something?” the priest asked as soon as he saw Lucifer. 

“No. She didn’t. Not yet anyway. I just have a question for you,” Lucifer said with a cold smirk. 

The priest swallowed his fear at that look and kept his face carefully blank. “Of course, Mr. Morningstar. What is it?” 

Lucifer stepped closer and looked into the priest’s eyes. “What is that you truly desire?” 

“I…I want…I want you back in hell where you belong,” he said as though in a trance. 

“I see. And is the detective part of this plan of yours?” he asked, keeping a mien of geniality that was required for his powers to work at full strength. 

“N-no. She shot me down when I tried to talk to her. She…she believes that you are a good person. You have her fooled,” the priest explained. 

Lucifer let his power fade and all the color in the priest’s face faded with it. “So…You decided to lie to me. To turn me against her. To take away the one person in this world that I love,” he said coldly, his eyes flashing red. “I have to wonder…/Father/” he sneered. “Did you really think you could get away with it? Did you really think that I would let you?” 

He was interrupted by a voice behind him. “Is everything okay here?” Lucifer’s red eyes faded back to brown as he turned around to see another priest. 

“I suppose. If you consider this man thinking I’m the actual devil and that he needs to send me back to hell,” Lucifer laughed. Let the little priest see what it was like for someone to try and ruin his life. He knew that no one would believe him. 

“Father Kinley. I have told you before about spreading these extreme and unfounded views,” the new priest scolded. “I do apologize Mr. Morningstar for any trouble he’s caused.” 

“Oh, that’s quite alright. He tried to come between my girlfriend and I, but thankfully she’s a little too smart to believe him, so there’s no trouble.” Lucifer shook the other priest’s hand, gave a glare to Father Kinley, and turned and walked out. As soon as he was in his car, he called Chloe and asked her to meet him at the penthouse.


	16. Chapter 16

Chloe got there before Lucifer did and just sat down to wait worriedly. Did he call her to tell her he believed her? If he didn’t then he probably wouldn’t want her anywhere near him, would he? Unless he wanted to punish her. She had only been there for about ten minutes before she heard the elevator and got up to face him as he came out. “Lucifer, I…” 

Lucifer cut her off with a finger to her lips. “I’m sorry, Chloe,” he said earnestly. “I should have believed you. I should have trusted you.” 

“Why didn’t you?” she asked gently. 

“Because I was a fool,” he admitted. “I was…afraid. I thought…” Lucifer took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair, turning away from her. He couldn’t look at her when he admitted this. “You are…the one being in creation that could…could truly break me.” He grabbed a bottle to pour himself a drink. “When he told me that…all my fears just…took over. I’m sorry,” he finished taking a long swallow of his drink before turning back to her. 

“I understand, Lucifer,” she told him, reaching a hand to his cheek. “I understand because you could break me too.” She took his hand and led him over to the couch to sit down. “I also understand needing time to think and get your head straight after something like that.”

“So…you’re not mad at me for…for thinking you could…”

“No, Lucifer, I’m not.” She knew that she would be a hypocrite if she was. “But I am curious what convinced you.”

“The priest. I went to see him. I used my power on him and he told me everything,” Lucifer admitted. “I should have done that to begin with, but I was so…caught off guard…”

“I get it,” Chloe told him. 

“He told me how he came to you and told you that I was an evil liar. You…you didn’t believe him at all? Even for a minute?” Lucifer asked, needing to know, but not sure which answer he wanted. If she didn’t doubt him for a second then was she going into this blindly?

“I…um…” Chloe looked away, pain in her eyes. She couldn’t answer that question. 

“It’s okay, detective. I /am/ a monster. I completely understand you having doubts,” he assured her. 

“No!” she snapped, spinning back to look at him. “You are NOT a monster, Lucifer. You’re not,” she said as her eyes filled with tears. 

The way she was saying it seemed more like denial than anything else to him, so he steeled himself for what he needed to do. What he knew he would have to do as soon as he realized that she had just blocked out the sight of his devil face. He sighed and let it come out. “Are you sure, detective?” 

She looked at his devil face and reached out a hand to him and he leaned his head back away from her touch, but she didn’t stop. She knew that if he really wanted to stop her then he would. Just like he had when she had tried to touch his wing scars. Her hand cupped his cheek gently, trying to make sense of the strange sensation, as she said clearly, looking in his eyes so he couldn’t be mistaken. “Yes. I’m sure, Lucifer. You are NOT a monster.” 

Lucifer looked at her blankly, trying to wrap his head around this. No one had ever…touched…this face like that before. Much less look at him so tenderly when he was wearing it. “Does it…hurt?” Chloe asked. 

“Does what hurt?” Lucifer asked confused. 

“Your…face. It looks and…and feels…burned.”

“No. It doesn’t hurt. Not anymore,” he whispered, looking at her curiously wondering what was going on in her head. When she leaned forward, he leaned back. “Ch-Chloe?” 

“Shh,” she shushed him, sliding her hand to the back of the scarred and burned head and pulled him forward to kiss him. As soon as their lips met, Lucifer’s arms went around her waist and he pulled her close, choking a sob as he kissed her desperately. 

His reaction was all it took to tell Chloe that she’d done the right thing. His lips tasted like ash, but his mouth tasted the same as ever which was all the proof she needed that the change in his appearance was only skin deep. She continued kissing him until she needed air and then she pulled back and looked into his red eyes. “I love you, Lucifer. No matter what face you’re wearing.” 

His face faded back to his normal one to reveal tears streaking down his cheeks, and she moved her other hand to his other cheek and used her thumbs to wipe them away. He reached up and took her wrists gently in his hands and turned to kiss first one palm and then the other as they got lost in each other’s eyes for a long moment. 

After a while, Chloe could see that he was getting too overwhelmed and was looking for an out, so she made a joke to lighten the mood. “I do have to say that I prefer you having hair to play with though,” she teased. 

Lucifer barked a laugh through his tears and pulled her into a side hug that turned into a cuddle. “I do so love you, Chloe Decker.” Any doubts he’d ever had were banished to the far reaches of time and space. For her to kiss him when he was…not a monster. When he was the devil. And to be able to pour so much emotion into it, there was no mistaking the love she felt for him in that kiss. He had felt her hesitate at the first touch, but then the way that she just…fell into it after…it proved that the hesitation was just because of how different it felt. 

She grinned against his shoulder. “And I love you, Lucifer Morningstar,” she said happily. 

“Can you stay?” he asked hopefully. 

“Not for the night. Maze is at home with Trixie right now. But I can stay for a while,” she told him. 

Lucifer bit back the next question that almost fell from his lips. He may still ask her later, but it was big enough that it deserved more thought. Instead he just said teasingly, “I suppose I’ll take what I can get.”

“That’s good to know,” she teased back, looking up to kiss him, and the next two hours was spent on the couch split between kissing and talking before Chloe had to go home. 

The next day they got back into the case and kept running into dead end after dead end. It wasn’t until they got home for the night that Dan called Chloe to tell her who the killer was and she immediately called Lucifer to go with her to get him. When they found him, he immediately shot Chloe with a taser before either of them could react and then he kept taunting Lucifer, trying to get him to show his face. Chloe was half-conscious but still couldn’t move, even to try and call Lucifer down before he killed him, but Lucifer stopped himself only for the guy to go and impale himself to death. 

When Lucifer figured out about the two way mirror, it didn’t take him long to figure out what had happened, even before they got confirmation that the Catholic church owned the house. Father Kinley tried to protest his innocence when they went to arrest him, but the other priest, the one who had interrupted Lucifer’s confrontation the night before, quickly threw him under the bus with another apology to Lucifer. 

The next day, Lucifer made his way to Linda’s office. He had gotten as far as he could by thinking things through himself and he needed some advice. “I’m thinking of asking Chloe to move in with me,” he said as soon as he sat down. 

“Well,” Linda said trying to shake off her shock. “Isn’t that a little sudden?” 

“I don’t think so, doctor,” Lucifer told her. “We’ve been dancing around each other for years. Our relationship was set up by my father himself, and I’ve come to the conclusion that if he’s doing it to hurt me, there’s nothing I can do to stop it anyway, so I might as well enjoy it while I can. Besides, she’d been dating Pierce for what, two weeks before she agreed to marry him? And we’ve known each other a lot longer than that.”

“That all makes sense,” she admitted. “But just because her relationship with Pierce moved too fast, doesn’t mean that it’s good for yours to move that fast too,” she felt the need to point out. “Do you feel like you’re still competing with him?” 

“No, no, no. Not at all. There never really was a competition with him. I realize now that I could have had the detective at any time I wished if I had just told her how I felt.”

“Then what brought this on, Lucifer? What’s really going through your mind?” 

“She kissed me, doctor,” he told her, still in awe at the memory. When Linda looked confused, he continued. “Not like this. With…with my other face. She kissed me like that. She…actually loves me and accepts me despite…everything I am.”

Linda couldn’t help but smile at that. She could see why Lucifer seemed to be floating on air now. “That’s good. I’m happy for you. But everything you just said was about her feelings. What about yours?” 

“I love her,” he said as though it should be obvious. “You know that. You were the one who helped me figure that out. She is…everything to me.”

“And can you accept /her/ for all that /she/ is?” Linda asked him pointedly. 

“What do you mean?” Lucifer asked confused. 

“I don’t just mean as a detective or as a woman, but as a mother too,” Linda told him. She knew how he felt about children. “You know if she moves in with you, her child will come as well, and will take a great deal of attention, even when you are trying to spend time with her.”

Lucifer sat back. He hadn’t actually considered that. He should have though. “You’ve given me a lot to think about, doctor. Thank you.” 

“Just…make sure that before you take that step…that you’re ready for all that it entails. I don’t think that your relationship could survive otherwise,” she told him honestly.


	17. Chapter 17

Lucifer wasn’t needed at the precinct that day, so after his conversation with Linda, he went back to Lux and spent the day between making sure everything was running smoothly and just playing with the occasional singing thrown in, as he turned everything over in his mind. At one point, late in the evening, he was playing and singing for the crowd when he spotted a familiar face. He lit up in a grin, caught her eye and jerked his head towards the bench next to him. 

Chloe returned his grin, both because he was happy to see her and because he was apparently good with letting everyone in his world know that they were together. She went over and sat next to him, and at his smile, she laid her head on his shoulder and he turned to kiss her head before finishing the song and then motioning for the other music to kick on again. “So, what brings you here, my dear detective?” he asked. 

“I missed you today, and just thought I’d stop by and say hi on my way home,” she told him. 

“Do you have time for a drink or two?” he asked hopefully, knowing that she would want to spend time with her daughter while she could. 

“I could spare time for one,” she told him and let him lead her to the bar. He was very much into PDA during the 15 minutes she was there, but he didn’t make her blush too much before she headed home. By the time he went to bed that night, he had come to a conclusion. Or part of one anyway. The conclusion being that he needed more information. 

The next morning, he headed to the precinct early, with donuts for everyone, wanting to get a chance to talk to Chloe before they got a case this time. By the time he got to her desk, she was already deep into paperwork, but nothing seemed to be urgent so he bit the bullet. “What would you think about me taking you and your offspring to the zoo on Saturday?” 

Chloe dropped her pen and looked up at him, blinking in confusion as she tried to figure out if she heard what she thought she heard. “You want to take me /and/ Trixie out? In public? To a place where she will be bouncing off the walls? You do realize what she’s like when she gets hyper right?” 

“Yes, yes, yes, and yes,” Lucifer said. 

“Why?” Chloe asked curiously. 

“I just…need to see…” Lucifer shifted uncomfortably, unable to finish the thought. 

When Chloe got it, her face lit up in pure happiness. He wanted this thing with them to go the distance and he was trying to incorporate Trixie into his life too. “I think it’s a wonderful idea,” she agreed, and he relaxed visibly at her acceptance. “Pick us up around ten?” 

“That sounds perfect,” he said with a nod just as a case was dropped on her desk and the last two days of the week were very busy trying to solve it. It was mid-afternoon on Friday before they finally got the guy and Lucifer quickly got a confession out of him. 

Saturday morning, Lucifer headed to Chloe’s apartment in a limo. He knew it was a little much, but figured the child would appreciate the treat. Especially since he had it stocked with chocolate cakes and candies along with the wine for the adults. Chloe rolled her eyes at the grandeur but kissed him when he explained that it was mostly for Trixie, and sure enough the ten year old thought it was the coolest thing ever. 

He then spent the rest of the day being dragged around from exhibit to exhibit by a child that seemed to feel the need to hold his hand the entire time. Granted, most of the time she was also holding her mother’s hand, and he was the one who kept falling behind, but it was the principle of the thing. Still, he allowed it without any fuss, though he still shied away from any other children that were present. He listened to the child’s chatter, bought her what she wanted in the gift shop, and they left in time to stop for dinner. Unfortunately he made the mistake of asking her where she wanted to go for dinner. “Chuck E’ Cheese!” she exclaimed. 

Chloe almost laughed at the look of horror on Lucifer’s face at that idea. “You want me to go into that miscreant laden cesspit?” 

“Please, Lucifer? Pretty please?” Trixie pulled out the puppy eyes. 

Lucifer sighed. “Very well. But just this once,” he agreed and gave the instructions to the driver. 

When they got there, Trixie immediately went to play while Chloe took pity on him and led him over to one of the more sedate corner tables at the back. He took out a cloth and wiped down the seat and table before he sat and then pulled out his hand sanitizer for what must have been the twelfth time that day. Chloe did laugh at that. “You do realize that you aren’t susceptible to human germs right?” 

“That is beside the point,” he told her. “Not to mention the fact that given the number of germs that children carry, for all I know they could eventually overcome me despite the fact that I’m the devil.” 

Chloe just shook her head and laughed again. “Whatever you say, Lucifer.” She got up to order the food, and came back while they waited for it. Once it was ready, Chloe told him. “Now to go find Trixie so she can come eat.” She had intentionally worded it like that just to see the horror on Lucifer’s face again as he looked at the gaggle of playing children that would need to be waded through. “Don’t worry. I’ll go get her. You stay and guard the food.” 

After they ate, Chloe let Trixie go play for another hour before she had pity on Lucifer and they left. Trixie was out like a light almost as soon as her head hit the pillow when she got home, and Chloe was rather glad that Maze was out tonight as she went to join Lucifer on the couch. “Thank you for today, Lucifer. Trixie had a lot of fun.” 

“It wasn’t as…distasteful…as I thought it would be,” Lucifer admitted. 

Chloe chuckled. “That’s good to hear. You were good with her,” she told him. 

“For a child, she is surprisingly tolerable,” he admitted again. 

Chloe laughed out loud. When it came to the children they’d seen today, she had been the biggest pain of them all the way she kept dragging them around, talking incessantly, bouncing all over the place and getting into everything. Lucifer calling her tolerable obviously just meant that he liked her and that warmed Chloe’s heart. She was starting to think that maybe she and Lucifer could have a real future. “So are you ready to tell me what this was really about, or do you need more time?” she asked. 

“I want you to move in with me,” he blurted out, turning to look at her nervously. 

Chloe just blinked in shock. “You want me…and Trixie…to move in with you,” she repeated, just to be sure that she’d heard him correctly. 

“Yes. I do. I understand if you’re not ready yet,” he added quickly. 

“No, it’s not that,” she told him. “It’s just…this is a big decision and you’ve obviously thought about it a lot, and I need a little time to do that too.”

Lucifer nodded. “That’s understandable,” he agreed. 

“But there are a few things we need to figure out first,” she told him. 

“Like what?” he asked. 

“Well first of all, your penthouse only has one bedroom,” she pointed out. 

“I do have other properties we can live in that are bigger. I was thinking the beach house would be a good choice. It has six bedrooms so Maze could even come to stay if she doesn’t want to stay here alone. I know you and she are good friends. We could even have a live in babysitter if you wish. Children love the beach I’m told, so it would be good there too. Plus, it’s more modern with fewer antiques that could be broken by Maze or the child. It also has a top notch security system. I know the commute to work would be a little more difficult, but I think the benefits outweigh that.”

Chloe smiled at the proof that he really had thought this out. “That all makes sense, but I’d need to think about it,” she told him and he nodded and kissed her. It didn’t take long for it to move to the bedroom and when she asked him to stay the night, he quickly agreed and didn’t even argue about putting his shorts back on to sleep in. Chloe fell asleep knowing that she would probably say yes to him, but knowing that she at least needed to take a few days to think about it.


	18. Chapter 18

The next morning, Chloe woke alone to the smell of bacon and smiled when she realized Lucifer was cooking. It definitely wasn’t Maze and Trixie wasn’t allowed to use the stove unsupervised. She headed down and stopped short at the sight that met her. It wasn’t just Lucifer cooking. Trixie was helping. “Like this, Lucifer?” she showed him a bowl. 

“Almost. The color needs to be completely consistent,” he said peering into the bowl before turning back to his own mixture. 

“Okay,” Trixie said cheerfully and started whisking again in a rather uncontrolled method. 

“Remember the wrist,” Lucifer said, and her motions became more controlled. Lucifer turned and started pouring what was obviously pancakes on the griddle. 

“Can I have chocolate chips in mine?” Trixie asked hopefully. 

“I don’t see why not,” Lucifer said, reaching into the cabinet for the requested ingredient. Chloe considered stopping it, not liking her having that much sugar for breakfast, but decided that just once couldn’t hurt. She stepped back around the corner though, not intending to come out until the chocolate chips were in the pancakes. “There you go,” Lucifer told her and she turned to look at the pancakes while Lucifer flipped the bacon. 

“Can I have more chocolate chips than that?” Trixie asked. 

“I assure you, child, that the chocolate to pancake ratio is perfect as it is,” Lucifer said peering into her bowl, before taking it from her. 

“Okay,” Trixie said, only a little disappointed as Lucifer started pouring out omelets. “Can I flip the pancakes?” 

“I think not, urchin,” Lucifer said distastefully. “Flipping pancakes is an art form.” When Trixie pouted, he told her, “However, you may flip the omelets when they’re ready.” 

“Yay!” Trixie cried as Chloe came out and Trixie ran over to hug her. “Mommy, look. I’m helping cook breakfast.”

“I see that, Monkey. It smells great,” Chloe told her, hugging her back and sending a beaming smile to Lucifer. 

Lucifer smiled lovingly at her as he flipped the pancakes before pulling the bacon from the skillet. “Oh miscreant,” he called. “The omelets are ready to be flipped.”

Trixie ran back over and flipped the omelets over one by one. They were small enough that the entire thing would fit on the spatula so she managed to do without messing any of them up, though it took her a couple tries to get the first one flipped before she figured out the right motion. By the time she was finished, Lucifer had the plates pulled down and started piling the pancakes on them, two chocolate chip ones for Trixie and three plates with three plain pancakes. Then the omelets were added, and Lucifer let Trixie do that before he split the bacon four ways and put the plates on the table just as Maze came sleepily out of her room, following her nose. 

“How did you know she would be up?” Chloe asked curiously. 

“I’ve known Maze for millennia,” he pointed out. “She has a remarkable habit of appearing just as the food hits the table. Particularly when bacon is involved.” Only then did Chloe notice that the bacon on Maze’s plate was only half cooked and she snorted. Sometimes she forgot how long Lucifer and Maze had been together. 

The four of them had a pleasant breakfast, even Maze once she woke up enough to participate in the conversations about halfway through. As they ate, Lucifer considered how he might extricate himself for the remainder of the day. Chloe had said that she needed to think about his offer and she could hardly do that if he was underfoot all day. By the time they finished, he had a good plan and just waited for a chance to see it through. He gathered the plates to take them to the sink, but before he could start washing them, Chloe stopped him. “You and Trixie cooked. Maze and I will do the cleaning,” Chloe told him. 

When Maze grimaced, but nodded, Lucifer relinquished the task and said, “Very well. I should get going anyway. Inventory won’t order itself. Unfortunately.” 

Chloe laughed and nodded, suddenly wondering just how much work Lucifer put in on the weekends with him working most of the week at the precinct. Lucifer kissed her gently before he left and Maze came over to help with the dishes while Trixie ran to watch television. Chloe took the opportunity to ask Maze the question. “Just how much does Lucifer work?” 

“More than he should, but not as much as you’re probably worrying over. He has people who do a lot of that stuff, though he has taken on more since I quit. He doesn’t trust many people which is why he tends to look the inventory and books over himself now.”

Chloe nodded, wondering how that would work when he wasn’t living there anymore. “So, Lucifer asked me to move in with him.”

Maze sighed. “I figured that would be coming soon.”

“Really? You don’t think it’s too soon?” Chloe asked. 

“It’s Lucifer. Once he jumps, he jumps with both feet. He doesn’t really do moderation,” Maze explained. 

Chloe chuckled. “You do have a point there.” 

“So he wants you to move into the penthouse with him?” 

“No. He was thinking of his beach house. There isn’t enough room in the penthouse for both me and Trixie and in the beach house you could stay with us too. If you wanted,” Chloe told her, not missing her disappointment when she brought up moving out. 

“I don’t know. I’ve spent most of the last few years trying to get out from under Lucifer’s shadow and moving back in with him would be like going backwards. I’ve actually been considering going to stay with Linda to help out with the baby stuff.” 

“That would be nice,” Chloe told her. “I’ll miss living with you though, and I know Lucifer misses having you around more too.” Maze scoffed. “No, really. I can tell. Look at the way he made your breakfast just the way you like it, and he didn’t even have to be asked to include you while he was cooking.”

Maze huffed. “I’ll think about it. I need to talk to Linda anyway.”

“Okay, that works. I still need to talk to Trixie and Dan about the idea too before I decide for sure too,” Chloe told her as she handed over the last of the dishes to be dried. 

“I’ll give you some privacy to talk to the kid then and go find Linda,” Maze told her. 

Chloe headed into the living room to sit next to Trixie and paused the show she was watching. “Can I talk to you about something, Monkey?” 

“Of course, Mommy,” Trixie said, turning to face her and putting her serious face on. 

“Lucifer asked us to move in with him, and I want to know what you think about that.”

“Oh, please? Can we, can we, can we?” Trixie bounced excitedly. “Lucifer is so funny and nice and he’s teaching me how to cook and everything.” 

“Well you would have to change schools and leave all your friends behind,” Chloe pointed out. 

“But he doesn’t live very far away,” Trixie said confused. 

“No, he doesn’t know, but where he lives now doesn’t have enough room for all of us, so he wants to move into his beach house with us,” Chloe told her. 

“Live on the beach? Really? Okay. I don’t mind changing schools for that and I can find new friends. I don’t have to lose my old ones though right?” 

“I suppose you don’t. You can still visit them and talk to them on the phone,” she told her. “So you want to do this?”

“Oh, yes pleeeeeease,” Trixie begged. 

“Well, I haven’t completely decided yet, and I still need to discuss it with your father, so all I can say right now is probably.” 

Trixie tackled her mother in a hug. “This is gonna be so awesome!” 

Chloe considered just waiting until tomorrow to talk to Dan at the precinct, but decided against it. For one thing, Lucifer would probably be around and Dan’s initial reaction would probably not be a good one and the last thing she needed was a fight between those two. Besides which, she was hoping to have an answer for Lucifer by tomorrow. “Okay, then I’m going to go call your father now.” 

Trixie nodded and unpaused the television while Chloe headed up to her room for this conversation. True to her prediction, Dan exploded. “Oh hell no. It was bad enough that you were dating that asshole, but now you want to move in with him and take my daughter with you? No. Not gonna happen.”

“What is your problem with him, Dan?” Chloe asked irritated. 

“You mean other than the fact that he’s childish, manipulative, and narcissistic, he got Charlotte killed in case you forgot,” he snapped. 

“Okay first of all, I’ll give you childish. He definitely can be sometimes, but he’s not at all manipulative. If anything he’s the opposite. And if you can’t see that his whole narcissistic thing is just an act you’re not a very good detective.”

“And you’re just blinded by his good looks and money,” Dan shot back. “How many secrets has he kept from you? How many times has he disappeared with no explanation? And this is the guy you think you can count on for you and for Trixie?”

“Okay now that was just below the belt. I can’t believe that you would think that little of me. And I don’t think I can count on him. I /know/ I can. We have no secrets now, including all the times he disappeared, and I can tell you that he kept them secret for a very good reason,” Chloe told him. She wanted to tell him that he’d been telling the truth all along and had never tried to keep secrets, but she knew that would go over even worse. 

“Well maybe you can forget what he did to Charlotte but I can’t,” Dan said harshly. 

“He didn’t do anything to Charlotte, Dan,” Chloe assured him. “He tried to tell me about Pierce. More than once.”

“You said he gave you some cockamamie story,” Dan pointed out. 

“He did, but I know better than anyone else how Lucifer tends to talk in metaphors. I should have known something was off. And then he did try to tell me more clearly when I brushed that off, but I stopped him. I told him that I didn’t want to hear it and unless he had any proof to keep it to himself. I thought he was just jealous.”

“That didn’t mean that he had to involve Charlotte,” Dan snapped. 

“He didn’t. He was as surprised as anyone to find out Charlotte knew, and he didn’t find out how until recently. Apparently when I was about to marry Pierce, Amenadiel went to Charlotte to get help finding proof. Lucifer had nothing to do with it.”

“Wait…Amenadiel knew too?” Dan asked, finally deflating.

“Yes, Dan. Your buddy was the real reason that Charlotte was involved and also didn’t tell anyone else,” Chloe snapped. 

“He must have had a reason,” Dan said thoughtfully. 

“Just like Lucifer had his reasons,” Chloe told him trying to point out the hypocrisy. “And at least he tried to tell me.” 

“Fine, so if you have no secrets now, what’s his deal?” Dan asked, not quite willing to give up his hostility, but knowing that the fight was lost. 

“That’s not my secret to tell Dan,” Chloe told him. 

“And if my daughter is going to be dragged into this, don’t you think I have a right to know?” 

“If it were something that would affect her, then yes, but it won’t, so I will not break his confidence,” Chloe said firmly. 

“Fine. Whatever. I didn’t think his penthouse would be big enough for all of you though,” Dan said resignedly. 

“We’ll be moving to his beach house instead,” Chloe told him. 

“The one where Pierce shot and killed the fake sinnerman? You’re going to move Trixie into a house where someone died?” 

Chloe rolled her eyes. “Find me a place in LA that someone hasn’t died in at some point in time. Besides, the apartment we live in now was gotten after I arrested the previous tenant for killing her neighbors. How is this any different?” 

“Okay, but that means that Trixie would be changing schools and it’s an hour away, so the commute would be a pain,” Dan tried to find less confrontational ways of talking her out of it. 

“I’ve already talked to Trixie and she’s happy to change schools if it means living on the beach. You know how much she loves the beach. And I thought the same thing at first, but after thinking about it for a while, I realized that the commute wouldn’t be that much worse. Coming from outside the city, there would be a lot less traffic, so it would only end up being about ten minutes longer, and a lot less during the high traffic times. Plus the route would be more scenic so even with the extra ten minutes, it still wouldn’t be as bad.” 

“Okay. I guess I can’t say anything against it then. Do what you want, but I do want it on the record that this is a bad idea,” Dan told her. 

“Thank you, Dan,” she told him. 

“Just know that I’ll be watching, and if Trixie ends up exposed to orgies or strippers or anything, I will step in.”

Chloe laughed. “She won’t be. I know you don’t have much faith in Lucifer, but have a little more faith in me than that.”


	19. Chapter 19

When Maze got back that afternoon, she told Chloe that she was going to move in with Linda, but she still intended to sit with Trixie often, and Chloe nodded and gave her a hug. She would miss living with Maze, but she couldn’t deny that Linda would probably need the help. Even if Amenadiel did stick around like he seemed to want to. She knew how hard it was to raise a normal child, much less a half angel one. 

She considered calling Lucifer with her answer now, but decided to spend the rest of the day thinking it over to be sure of what she wanted. Besides, she didn’t want to interrupt him while he was working. Apparently she did that often enough for his other job anyway. It could wait until tomorrow. 

The next morning, Lucifer was at the precinct with donuts like he generally did once or twice a week, case or not. Chloe knew why he was there this morning though. She knew he wasn’t going to push her for an answer, but was still hoping for one and she obliged him. She sat down at her desk, and waited for him to get to her. Even though she was always his last stop, he always managed to save her favorite for her. She grabbed the lemon filled donut with a smile, and told him, “Yes.”

“Yes to…”

“To moving into the beach house with you,” Chloe told him and he grinned, leaning over and pulling her into a searing kiss. 

Once they broke, Chloe blushed at the catcalls. “Sorry, detective. I know you don’t like PDAs, but I couldn’t help myself this time,” he told her, only sounding a little sorry, but she didn’t expect much more. 

“That’s okay. Just this once is fine,” she told him with a chuckle. 

“So, when are you wanting to do this?” Lucifer asked. 

“Well I need to call the school in a little while, it’ll probably take about a week to get that settled, but I’ll have a better idea of the timeline after. Then it’ll just be a matter of finding time to get everything packed and moved,” she told him. 

“Don’t worry about that. I intend to hire movers. We’re both far too busy to bother with the grunt work ourselves when there are people perfectly willing to help.”

“Okay, but there are still some things I’d like to take care of myself,” Chloe told him, not wanting any strangers going through her underwear or anything.

“Naturally. There are a few things I’ll need to handle myself too,” Lucifer told her. “But those things should take very little time.” 

“Yeah. Okay. So I’ll call the school now and assuming that can be all settled by the end of the week, we can aim for this weekend to move?” 

“That sounds perfect, darling,” he drawled cheerfully. “Is there a reason detective douche is glaring at me more than usual today?” 

Chloe shrugged. “I told him about moving in with you. Since Trixie is his daughter and all. He’s just not really happy about it.” 

Lucifer huffed. “Still blaming me for all the problems in the world, is he?” 

“He’s still hurting over Charlotte. I told him you had nothing to do with that, but it’ll just take time,” Chloe told him. 

“Yes, well, I don’t intend to let him get me down. You make your phone call while I go talk to dear Ella,” Lucifer told her. 

Chloe resolved to ask when Lucifer and Ella got so close, but she hadn’t had a chance yet, and he was gone before she could think to, so she just grabbed her phone and called the school. She had to check the computer for the address of the new house, having forgotten it, but thankfully it was logged in one of her cases so it was easily at hand. They promised to have all her files ready and transferred to her new school by Thursday and then she would just have to call the new school and make sure everything was set and arrange for the bus to pick her up and drop her off. Thankfully school had just started so she would have plenty of time to make new friends and make the adjustment easier. 

Once she was off the phone, she started working on some of her paperwork that had been piling up, but didn’t get very far before a case was dropped on her desk. She looked it over and then headed up to the lab to retrieve her partner. The case ended up being relatively open and shut. It was a jealous husband killing his wife’s lover and they had it wrapped up before one in the afternoon, and she took a late lunch with Lucifer before he headed back to the club. 

During lunch they talked about the move. “So I talked to Maze, and she’s going to go stay with Linda to help with the baby and stuff,” Chloe told him. 

“That makes sense. I doubted she would want to live with me anyway,” Lucifer told her. 

“Why’s that?” Chloe asked, never really having gotten the whole story about what happened between them. 

“She was my right hand for millennia. She was my bodyguard and my assistant all rolled into one. Once she realized we were staying here, she wanted to become her own person, and I can’t really blame her for that. Living with me would be too much like going back to her old role for her,” Lucifer explained. 

Chloe thought for a moment before nodding. “Yeah. That makes sense, actually. And explains a lot.” 

“So will you be wanting to get a live in babysitter then?” Lucifer asked, since Maze wouldn’t be there. 

“I can’t afford something like that, Lucifer,” she pointed out. 

“Maybe /you/ can’t, but /we/ can,” he told her. “Besides, once you take out room and board, the cost isn’t that much higher.” Not that he intended to pay so little, but one step at a time. 

Chloe looked at him searchingly. Was he really offering her what she thought he was? Moving in together was one thing, but access to his finances was a whole different story. She decided to table the bulk of that issue for later. She had to admit that having a live-in babysitter would be extremely helpful given the way her schedule could change at a moment’s notice and now that they were going to be living further away, it was almost a necessity. “Yeah. Okay. That sounds like a good idea then.”

“Great. And I know just the person,” he told her cheerfully and she looked at him skeptically. “I know you’ll need to meet her and approve her first, of course, but I’m sure you’ll agree with me.”

“Who is she?” Chloe asked. 

“Currently she’s a teacher. Or she was a few years ago anyway. I can’t remember for what age,” Lucifer told her. 

“And how do you know her?” Chloe asked, despite being sure she already knew the answer. 

“She came to me for a favor a few years ago. Needed help exposing her cheating husband so he couldn’t clean her out in the divorce,” Lucifer explained. 

“So you never slept with her?” Chloe asked skeptically. 

“Of course I did,” Lucifer freely admitted. 

“So you want me to let one of your old girlfriends live with us to take care of Trixie?” Chloe asked incredulously. 

“Girlfriend?” Lucifer laughed. “Hardly. We slept together once and I never saw her since. She meant nothing. And to be perfectly honest, if never having slept with me is one of your conditions, you’re not going to have a whole heap of options. If you’re worried about my being faithful to you, you don’t need to. I love you, detective, and I would never hurt you. Besides, I promised you fidelity, and I never go back on my word.”

Chloe couldn’t help the happiness that flowed through her at that. His promise of fidelity had been rather vague to her, though he had apparently meant it the way she’d hoped he did, so the confirmation was nice. She had known from the start that he came with a ton of history, and had accepted that, so this was no different when he put it like that. “Okay, I’d be willing to meet her and give her a chance, but if she already has a job…”

“She does owe me a favor. And it’s not like it would hurt her any to call it in. We’d pay more than teaching does anyway when you consider the room and board in a gorgeous beach house with every possible amenity,” Lucifer told her. 

Chloe nodded in partial acceptance. “Okay. We can ask, but don’t call in your favor for it,” she told him. 

“Whyever not? I’m not likely to get another chance to call it in, if you’re worried about me losing the opportunity,” Lucifer told her. 

“Because I don’t like the idea of forcing her to uproot her job and her life if she doesn’t want to. I agree that it would be a great deal and most people would take it, but she should have a choice,” Chloe told him. When Lucifer shrugged and nodded in agreement, Chloe asked, “Why did you make a deal with her if you didn’t think you would ever call in the favor?” 

“I thought you would know by now that I rarely call in favors. They are there for emergencies,” Lucifer told her. “That’s why I’ve never worried about calling them in for cases.”

Chloe nodded. She hadn’t realized that, but she should have. In hindsight, it was rather obvious, but she had never bothered to pay much attention. “Okay, so feel free to set up a meeting for me with her. Maybe at your penthouse? I want to meet her first before she meets Trixie.”

“That’s perfectly acceptable. I’ll try for this evening if she’s free,” Lucifer told her. “I’ll text you the details once I talk to her.” Chloe nodded and checked her watch to see that it was almost time for her to head back. After a quick kiss, Lucifer headed for Lux while Chloe headed back into the precinct.


	20. Chapter 20

Lucifer called Miranda on the way to the club and she agreed to meet him that evening, though sounded a little disappointed that it wasn’t for sex. Lucifer had no intention of mentioning that part to Chloe though. He texted Chloe with the time and then busied himself checking on the club since it was about to open. He headed upstairs about half an hour before Miranda and Chloe were supposed to arrive to wait for them, but about twenty minutes later, he got a text from Chloe that she was running late and asked him to apologize to Miranda and ask her to wait. 

By the time Chloe arrived, they had an agreement in place, just waiting for Chloe’s approval. Lucifer greeted her with a kiss and a drink when she came out of the elevator and led her to the living area to sit beside him, across from Miranda. “Hi, I’m Chloe,” she introduced herself. Chloe took a moment to look the other woman over. She could see why Lucifer had been attracted to her, but she wasn’t as over the top as she had expected. Miranda had long wavy medium brown hair that was pulled up into a ponytail, and a conservative grey skirt suit, not a lot of jewelry, and while very pretty, was mostly just average. 

“Miranda,” she shook her hand. “Lucifer told me to bring my resume,” she told Chloe handing it over.

Chloe nodded and smiled encouragingly at her as she looked it over and she had to admit that her qualifications were definitely good. She’d been a third grade teacher for seven years and had degrees in child development and child psychology. Given that Trixie’s usual babysitter was a demon whose closest thing to a qualification was her ability to dismember anyone who tried to hurt Trixie, this was a definite no brainer. Still, she wanted to get to know her a little better so they spent a little time in easy conversation, before Chloe brought up the big question. “Lucifer did tell you why you’re here right?” 

“Yes. And we’ve already come to an agreement on pay and benefits, pending your approval, of course,” she told him. 

“I see, and what does this agreement entail?” Chloe asked. “And did he give you a choice?”

“I did not call in her favor if that’s what you’re asking, detective,” Lucifer told her. 

“He was actually very clear that he wasn’t,” Miranda told her. “He said the choice was mine, but with an offer like that…well, how could I refuse.”

“What was the offer?” Chloe asked. 

“Three quarters of her teacher’s salary, plus room and board and twenty four/seven access to all the amenities of the house in return for being available six days a week, even when we have to work late or get called in. She will take care of the child, take her to and from school if requested, cook dinner and lunch when school is out, light cleaning, and grocery shopping. Plus health and dental benefits, and two weeks paid vacation per year,” Lucifer told her. 

Chloe goggled at him for a minute before coming back to herself. “Excuse us for a moment,” she said to Miranda, pulling Lucifer out to the balcony. “Isn’t that a lot?”

“Are you saying that your offspring isn’t worth it?” Lucifer asked confused. 

“No, of course not. It’s just…you said it wouldn’t cost much more than a normal babysitter,” Chloe told him. 

“And if we got a normal babysitter it wouldn’t. But I thought you would want the best for your child and it’s not like we can’t afford it,” Lucifer told her. 

“You keep saying /we/ can afford it…” Chloe asked, realizing that tabling that issue earlier may not have been the best idea. 

“Well, yes. Moving in together means merging our lives does it not? Why shouldn’t that include finances?” 

Chloe gaped for a moment before saying, “But…that’s so uneven. I mean…I don’t have a lot of money…” 

Lucifer laughed. “It’s only money, darling. It’s not like you could or would clean me out.” 

Chloe remembered how often he’d said those words. That it was only money. She also remembered how bemused he so often was at how much value humans put on it, and she realized that it really didn’t matter that much to him. That was the only reason she was taking it. She was finally starting to realize just how generous Lucifer was, and found herself falling for him even more. “Okay. But I don’t intend to go crazy either. You’re right about Trixie though, she does deserve the best and if we can afford it…okay.”

Lucifer grinned and kissed her soundly before heading back inside and Chloe told Miranda, “That all sounds good to me, but I would like you to meet Trixie before a final decision is made. Are you free tomorrow evening, around the same time?” When Miranda agreed, Chloe gave her the address to her apartment and she headed out. 

“Can you stay for a while?” Lucifer asked Chloe hopefully. 

“For a while, yes. Maze is staying with Trixie tonight, but I promised to be home for her bedtime story,” Chloe told him, curling up to his side. 

The next hour was spent talking about details for the move before they were interrupted. Lucifer had been at the bar pouring another drink for himself when the elevator opened and a brunette in a white dress stumbled out drunkenly. “Eve?” Lucifer asked in shock. 

“Lucifer! There you are! I was looking for you downstairs,” she said running at him and jumping into his arms, kissing him.

Lucifer’s eyes widened as his hands went in the air for a moment as he froze before he put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her away just as Chloe was getting up to intervene. “What are you doing here?” he asked her, holding her back away from him. 

“Heaven was sooo boring and Adam was driving me crazy so I found a way to ditch and come back here,” she told him. “I missed you,” she tried to get to him again, but he held her back, giving Chloe a look asking her to let him handle this. 

“Believe me, I understand how boring heaven can be, but if you came here to be with me, I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you,” he told her and she slumped and pouted. 

“But why?” she whined. 

Lucifer held his arm out for Chloe who wasted no time in sliding next to him, wrapping her own arm possessively around him. “Because I happen to be happily taken,” he told her. “This is Chloe.” 

“But…you’re the devil,” she said confused. “You’re not supposed to be…boring,” she finished. 

Lucifer snorted. “I assure you, Eve. I am not boring.”

“But the orgies, the drinking, the debauchery, the…the punishment…” she was still just as confused. 

Lucifer rolled his eyes. “I still drink, have a more moderate amount of debauchery, and definitely still punish.” 

“But…I came here for you…I-I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she said tearfully. 

Chloe considered leaving, but given the way she had almost attacked him when she got here, she wasn’t comfortable leaving him alone with her. Not because she didn’t trust him, but because she didn’t trust her. She did keep quiet and let Lucifer handle it though. 

“Okay. I’ll tell you what. Staying here with me is out of the question, but I do have other properties. I’ll call you a car and you can stay in one of them. Come here,” he said leading her to the bedroom and Chloe followed. 

Lucifer pulled bundles of cash out of his safe. “This should be enough to get you a new identity and get you started for a while,” he told her, putting it in a bag. He grabbed a pen and paper and wrote down a name address and phone number. “Call this guy and tell him Lucifer sent you and he’ll get you set up.” Eve had tears running down her cheeks now, but nodded, finally realizing that the devil that she had come here for didn’t exist anymore. She glared at Chloe, making it clear who she thought was to blame. He then got on his phone and called for an Uber, and as soon as he told her what vehicle to look for she nodded again and stormed out. 

Once she was gone, Chloe raised an eyebrow at Lucifer. “You did a lot for her,” she pointed out. 

“Well what else could I do? She quite literally just fell from the sky. She won’t get far on her own without an identity or anything,” Lucifer said with a shrug, hoping this wouldn’t be a problem. 

Chloe just snorted and shook her head. She couldn’t really argue with him over that much and she was still having trouble wrapping her head around who Eve actually was, but aside from the fact of throwing money at a woman who had practically molested him who he had an apparently complicated history with, he had actually handled things appropriately. She had to admit that given the circumstances, he didn’t really have much of a choice, but once again, his generosity and lack of care for money was made very clear. “You didn’t make a deal with her?” she couldn’t help but ask. She would have thought that he would make a deal for a favor for what he just did. 

Lucifer shrugged again. “She came here for me, detective. I figured having to disappoint her and send her away made us even.”


	21. Chapter 21

“So that was really Eve. As in Adam and Eve. The first woman in the world,” Chloe asked in awe, now that the drama was over. 

“Well not exactly the first. There was another before here. Lilith, but she went bad and became the first demon,” he explained. “Not my doing that time,” he added quickly. 

“So you had a…thing with her,” Chloe said trying to wrap her head around it. 

“With Eve? Yes. You didn’t think I just handed her the apple and said ‘here, try this’, did you?” he laughed. 

Chloe laughed with him, shaking her head. “What was the point behind all that anyway?” she asked, knowing that he didn’t mind questions about his past. 

“Well there are a lot of reasons steeped in family drama that would take forever to explain, but the crux of it was that humanity was my father’s favorite pet. And I say pet because that’s all they were then. Mindlessly obedient. The did what he said to do, thought what he said to think. They had no free will. Basically, he was annoyed that some of us had started to think for ourselves and wanted to make something that would follow his orders without question. The fruit from the tree of knowledge gave them free will. It allowed them to learn to think for themselves too so I got to poke him in the eye by taking away his favorite toy,” Lucifer explained. 

“So the big sin that the whole world blames you for is giving humanity free will?” Chloe asked incredulously. 

Lucifer sighed and plopped back down on the couch. “More or less. They aren’t exactly wrong that every bit of evil in the world is my fault. If not for what I did…”

She sat next to him and took his hand. “No, it’s not your fault,” she said clearly. Lucifer snorted derisively. “It’s not,” she said more firmly. “You gave them…us…the ability to make our own choices. You’re not responsible for what anyone does with that ability. You can’t take responsibility for things you can’t control, Lucifer.” 

“If not for me, humanity would still be living in paradise, without a care in the world,” he told her, trying to make her see. 

“And without any of the things that make life worth living,” she told him. “Free will is a double edged sword sometimes, yes, but overall I would rather have it then not. And I’m sure just about everyone in the world would agree with me,” she told him. She was starting to understand the guilt that kicked him into hell now. At least part of it. She knew that there was a rebellion in there somewhere that might have contributed, but one problem at a time. She was glad that this was coming out now before it ended up overwhelming him somehow. She was glad for the opportunity to help him through it. 

“You’re saying you would rather people kill each other, wage wars, destroy each other in so many ways?” 

“Yes,” Chloe said. “Paradise means nothing without free will. Yes it makes some people hurt each other, but it makes more people love each other and help each other. There is bad, yes, but there is a whole lot more good, but the main thing I’m saying is that nothing means anything if we can’t choose it for ourselves.” She reached the hand not in his up to his cheek and turned his face to look at her. “You did a good thing, Lucifer. Maybe it wasn’t for the best reasons, but it was still a good thing. You need to forgive yourself.” 

“I can’t” he whispered. 

“Why?” 

“Because I don’t know how. I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” he said sadly. 

Chloe ran her hand back through his hair and down to his neck. “I understand,” she told him. She was in the same boat after all, except her guilt wasn’t misplaced. “But you have to try.”

“I want to,” he admitted. 

“Then that’s the first step,” she told him pulling him in for a kiss. 

She rested his head on his shoulder and got to what was really bothering her since that episode. “I haven’t really…changed you so much have I?” she asked worriedly. “I never meant to. I mean, I know I asked for monogamy, but that’s the only thing I wanted to change. I love you just as you are.” 

Lucifer laughed amusedly. “You’re not the first person to wonder about that. In fact, I had my little freakout over it quite a while ago. It took a bit, but I came to a realization.”

“Oh?” she asked hopefully. 

“Yes. You see, while I definitely have less sex and don’t party quite as often, at the core I’m still the same as I always was. A little more evolved; you’ve definitely made me a better person, but I’m still me.” 

“Do you miss the constant sex and partying?” she asked, a little insecurity creeping into her voice. 

“Sometimes,” he admitted. “But as someone who interviewed so many of my former partners, you should know better than most how meaningless it all was. Yes, there are things that I miss that I can’t have anymore. Orgies, threesomes, foursomes, etc, but one night with you is worth more than a lifetime of all that. What I lost in quantity I more than made up for in quality,” he told her. 

Chloe bit her lip, feeling a little better but still a little hurt. “I’m sorry. I just can’t…”

He cut her off with a finger to her lips. “Let me try to put it a different way,” he told her. He thought he was starting to get the hang of this whole metaphor thing after so long dealing with Doctor Linda. “Say you have a lifetime supply of…I don’t know…McDonalds, but then you have the opportunity to trade it for a lifetime supply of caviar and fine wine. Sure you might miss the simple uncomplicated McDonalds from time to time, but you wouldn’t give up the caviar and fine wine for it, knowing you would never get it back.” 

Chloe couldn’t help but laugh. She got what he was saying, but that wasn’t the best metaphor. He had explained it better the first time, but she was starting to understand. She couldn’t help but make a joke though after that. “I don’t like caviar,” she said amusedly. 

Lucifer barked a laugh. “But I do, darling,” he said pulling her into his lap and kissing her playfully before getting back to the serious stuff. He refused to lie to her, but he hated seeing her so insecure. “Do you realize how many times in the last few years that I’ve walked away from dalliances, sometimes in the middle of them, when you called? And that wasn’t even for sex. Just for the opportunity to be near you. Do you really think I would hesitate to leave all that behind when you’re offering me everything?”

Chloe finally relaxed as she felt her fear and worry wash away. “No. I get it now,” she told him, laying her head on his shoulder, still sitting across his lap as his arms tightened around her. If anything, she felt better now than she would have if he’d said that he didn’t miss it at all. He proved, once again, that he wouldn’t lie to her, and made her see just how much she mattered to him. She didn’t feel worthy of that love after what she’d almost done before, but as she left she resolved to spend the rest of her life trying to be. 

The next morning they got a case about five minutes after she showed up so she texted Lucifer to meet her at the crime scene. Having him on hand to translate the Arabic in the voicemail was definitely handy and their search led them to Turkish Pete. Lucifer was tempted to call in his favor for information, but wanted to keep that ace in the hole just in case. This was the kind of guy that he might actually need it for, so instead he used his powers to get him to open up. When he found out that they had kidnapped Eve last night as she was leaving Lux, he was glad he’d saved the favor because he traded it for her freedom along with everything she had with her, cash and all, after assuring Bashir that she had nothing to do with the missing necklace. 

Lucifer, once again, got her a car, this time making sure it was the right one, and sent her off again to start her new life. “And that, detective, is the kind of emergency I save those favors for,” Lucifer said with a tense chuckle. 

“To help other people,” she said knowingly. 

“Not always,” he said, uncomfortable with letting her think that he was selfless. 

“But often enough,” she pointed out and he just shrugged.


	22. Chapter 22

The information that they got from Eve before they sent her off had them on their way to the next lead. When Chloe was about to call Miranda to reschedule meeting Trixie, Lucifer told her not to. He offered to handle the lead himself, which ended up getting him into a barfight, but he got the information he needed. That their best chance to get the necklace and the killer was the next night. He texted the information to Chloe before heading home. She texted him back with thanks and the information that Miranda had the job. 

They ended up getting the guy and the necklace the next night, and thankfully for Chloe Thursday was mostly spent with paperwork. She missed working with Lucifer that day, but they were moving in two days and she appreciated being able to be home on time to start getting everything ready. Maze had moved out the day before, so it was just her and Trixie for a few days. Lucifer had scheduled the movers to arrive at her apartment at seven am on Saturday, and they would be going from there to his penthouse for the little bit he was taking with him. 

When the big day came, Chloe was up much earlier than she needed to be due to excitement, and a little bit of nerves. Unfortunately, Trixie was just as excited and up just as early, bouncing off the walls. Since all Chloe and Trixie had packed was their clothes, the movers got everything else packed and loaded in about two hours and Chloe and Trixie headed for the beach house, not seeing any need to meet Lucifer at the penthouse and Chloe wanted some time to take a good tour of the house and make plans for when everything got there. 

The movers took another two hours at the penthouse since Lucifer hadn’t packed anything to be taken. He had just packed up his irreplaceable books and artifacts and moved them into one of his more secure properties. At least until the child was grown. Everything else, including most of his books, were still waiting to be packed. 

By the time they got to the beach house, it was lunchtime. Lucifer stopped on the way to pick up a stack of pizzas, knowing that Chloe was already there and could direct the unloading until he got there. They all had a nice long lunch break when he arrived, movers included, before they got back to work. Most of the house had already been furnished except for the extra bedrooms, so there wasn’t as much furniture as might be expected, but they had brought all of the bedroom furniture from Chloe’s, Trixie’s, and Lucifer’s rooms. 

After some discussion with Chloe, the bed currently in the master bedroom that had barely been used would be moved into Miranda’s room while Lucifer’s well used bed would be theirs. Since the rest of the bedroom furniture matched, all of it was moved. Chloe’s older, but still very usable bed would be in the guest room, while Trixie was obviously keeping hers. The rest of the boxes were placed in the correct rooms, but not unpacked before the movers left and the rest of the afternoon and evening was spent unpacking, despite Trixie’s pleas to go to the beach. 

There was a bit of a discussion when Trixie asked if she could paint her room and Lucifer said ‘sure’ at the same time Chloe said ‘no’. “What’s the harm?” Lucifer asked.

“Because she doesn’t know how to paint like that and who knows what kind of colors she would choose,” Chloe told him. 

“So just let her throw paint at the walls if she wants. It can always be painted over again later if needed,” he said with a shrug not understanding what the big deal was. “It’s not like this is a rental.” 

Chloe considered it for a moment before shrugging herself. He did have a point. It didn’t really matter and if he didn’t care if one of the rooms in the house looked like a paint store threw up in it, then she didn’t either. “Okay. You make a valid point,” she admitted before turning to Trixie. “Yes, you can paint your room. But not until next weekend. There is too much else to do this weekend.” 

“Yay!” Trixie yelled jumping up and down and pumping her fist in the air. “That means I probably shouldn’t unpack then or paint will get on everything,” she pointed out smugly. 

Chloe rolled her eyes. She should have seen that one coming. “Unpack your clothes and put them away. We’ll be covering the dresser and everything else in plastic anyway. The rest of your stuff you can put in the spare room for now. But that means you have to help me unpack the kitchen.”

Trixie sighed and seemed to deflate before nodding. Lucifer just laughed at the bargaining. He did like the kid’s style. “I’ll go start on the bedroom,” he offered, wanting to get his suits out of the musty wardrobe box sooner rather than later. He had gotten enough of a glimpse of Chloe’s closet and dresser to know how she liked her clothes organized too, and he had that done and the little bit of extra stuff for the bedroom put up in no time, and headed back downstairs to start on the books, both his and Chloe’s. 

They took a break for dinner, but otherwise were done with the bulk of the unpacking before they went to bed to ‘christen’ the new house. The next morning, Lucifer and Trixie cooked breakfast again before Trixie got her wish to go down to the beach and Lucifer spent the morning relaxing in his lounger while Chloe went back and forth between joining him and building sandcastles with Trixie. Lucifer had made a picnic lunch for them to eat, and after lunch, Trixie dragged Lucifer over to work on the sandcastles with her. Lucifer sighed but allowed it, and then built the most amazing sandcastle ever seen that Trixie pronounced as ‘awesome’. 

When they went inside for dinner, all of them needed to shower first to get rid of all the sand, and Lucifer was quick to suggest doubling up to Chloe which meant their shower took quite a bit longer and left them both well satisfied when they were done. Miranda arrived as scheduled, just in time for dinner and ate with them before being shown to her room to drop off her stuff and then getting a tour of the house. She looked around in appropriate awe. It was everything she had been promised and more. 

Lucifer had paid off the penalty on her teaching contract and deposited her first monthly payment in her account and now that she was here, he gave her a debit card attached to an account he set up for household purchases like groceries. 

The next morning before they headed into town for work, Lucifer led them to the garage where he had the car that he had offered Chloe a few months ago. “I know I didn’t present it in the best way then. You know I’ve never been the best at expressing myself, but I really do want you to have this car. Not because I think you care about stuff, but because it’s nicer and more dependable, especially since we have so much further to drive each day.”

Chloe chuckled and shook her head, remembering the day he’d first offered it to her, and yeah, he didn’t express himself very well, but she understood now. He was fighting his feelings at the same time as trying to express them. It was no surprise that he messed up in the presentation. This time, she reacted much differently. She took the keys and said a sincere, “Thank you, Lucifer. It means a lot that you care about me and my safety.” 

He breathed a sigh of relief and got in the passenger side, so she got in and started the car. “We’re riding together?” she asked curiously. 

“There isn’t much point in taking such a long trip separately. I figure I’ll leave one of my cars at Lux and since it’s on the way to the precinct we can stop by there on the way in so I can use that to get around as needed while we’re there. I still have a few cars to move this way this week either way,” he told her. 

She agreed that it made sense and they enjoyed the scenic drive. She dropped him off at Lux and he headed in to start going over the books and inventory that had taken a backseat last week due to getting ready for the move. Chloe would text him if they had a crime scene, and sure enough, she did about an hour later.


	23. Chapter 23

Lucifer greatly enjoyed the case and getting a chance to show off one of his fancier cars. It seemed to be wrapped up pretty neatly and Dan was on his way to pick up the killer, so they went to celebrate at Lux for while. Lucifer was in such a good mood that he didn’t even mind when Eve showed up and worked her way into the group. Chloe was a little tense about it for a little while, but once it became obvious that she intended to keep her hands to herself, she relaxed too, and it was a fun evening. Right up until the suspect walked into the door holding a detonator for a bomb. 

Lucifer was definitely not happy. He always hated when violence walked in the door of his club. It was bad for business and there were far too many innocents here that could be hurt. “Much as I appreciate the well-timed interruption, you can't just walk into my club…” He was cut off by a gunshot to his stomach. 

“Lucifer!” Chloe and Eve both screamed rushing to his sides, and Ella, despite being stoned out of her mind, looked like she wasn’t too far behind. 

“Everybody, sit down! There's a bomb in this building, so if anyone thinks they're going to escape through the crowd, or anyone tries to rush me back up! Everyone dies. Detective Decker, give me your gun. Put it on the ground. And your phone. Now,” the bomber ordered. 

“Okay,” she said with her hands in the air. “Okay whatever you say, but this man needs an ambulance right now and I will stay with you but everyone else should go.” 

Naturally he refused to let anyone leave, not even Lucifer who was bleeding out on the floor. When he was distracted by ordering everyone’s phones collected Chloe turned to Lucifer and asked needlessly, “Are you okay?” 

“Bit of a stomachache detective,” Lucifer joked. 

“He’s the devil though,” Eve protested. “He’s going to be okay right?” 

“Yeah. He’s going to be fine,” Chloe assured her, hoping against hope that she wasn’t lying. “We’ll get help. You stay here with him, okay?” she asked Eve. 

Ella took that moment to rub her face against Eve’s hair. “I know I should be freaking out right now, but your hair is so shiny.”

Chloe took control of the situation. Or at least tried to. “Marco, we know you killed your former partners, but this is not going to help the situation. If you hurt me or anyone else here, it is only going to make things worse for you.”

“I don't want to hurt you, detective. I need your help. When I went away, my wife changed her name and I can't find her now,” the bomber told her.

“You did all this to find your wife?” Chloe asked incredulously, unable to resist looking back at Lucifer. 

“Look Shooting him was an accident, okay? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do it. I'm just trying to just trying to fix things,” he told her. 

“Oh, don't worry about it, pal. You just give me the gun and I'll even things up,” Lucifer snarked from the floor. 

“Look, when I went away to prison for robbing that bank, it ruined her. You know, she disappeared, and I understand. But I just want one chance to look her in the eye and tell her that I just want to tell her that I'm sorry. I want you to find her now. And then I will think about letting everyone go.”

“Okay,” Chloe agreed and got her phone to call Dan and tell him what they needed. While they were waiting, Chloe returned to Lucifer’s side, trying to do what she could to help him, sending Eve for the bar to get some alcohol. “I’m so sorry, Lucifer,” she said, feeling the tears fill her eyes. “I love you. Please don’t leave me.”

“I love you too, Chloe,” Lucifer croaked out. “Listen…if I don’t make it…” She started shaking her head emphatically, but he reached up a bloody hand to her cheek to force her to look at him. “If I don’t make it, I put the beach house in your name too. Your name is also on all my accounts. Lux goes to Maze, but everything else is yours.” 

“Lucifer, stop,” she said as the tears finally fell from her eyes. “I don’t need any of that. I don’t want it. I just want you. I need /you/.” 

Eve came back and handed her the bottle silently, that exchange having given her a lot to think about. Chloe poured some of the alcohol over the wound before Lucifer took the bottle and took a long drink. “Is there anything else I can get him?” Eve finally asked. 

“We've got to get him to the hospital,” Chloe said sniffling. 

“No, I'm fine, Detective. You just get me within an inch of that dullard and I'll tear his arms off like a turkey leg,” Lucifer joked with a pained laugh. 

“Focus, Decker. Focus,” Chloe told herself. “Lucifer's out of commission. Ella is too. Eve?” she turned to the brunette. 

“Yeah?”

“Do you have any superpowers or anything?” she asked hopefully. 

“No. I'm just me,” Eve said with a shrug. 

“Right. So we've got nothing,” she said trying very hard not to lose it. 

“No,” Lucifer croaked. “Chloe we have you, okay? Listen to me. You are the smartest, most capable, most resourceful person I’ve ever known. So come on, detective what's the plan?” He had a feeling that he wasn’t getting out of this one but he would NOT accept her going down with him. 

“Okay. Yeah, plan. Yeah,” Chloe said wracking her brain. “Okay, Eve, you tend to Lucifer. Keep pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding. I'm going to find where he planted this bomb. And when I do, Ella,” she snapped her fingers in front of Ella’s face to get her attention. “Ella! Can you diffuse it?”

“Sure. You guys, I read the file on the demolition charges Marco's unit built. Pff! Easy as pie,” she said loopily. 

“Lucifer, you have a job too. How do we sober up Ella?” 

“Hold this,” Lucifer handed her the bottle and reached into his pockets. “Not sober, but how about focused?” Chloe gave him an incredulous look at the bag of cocaine he pulled out. “It's the best way to lose your roll, detective,” he assured her, so Chloe decided to just go with it. It didn’t take long before Ella was babbling about detonators and figuring out how he wired the bomb. 

“I see the cocaine is working,” Lucifer said with a groan. 

“Really? How can you tell? I don't feel any different,” Ella told him. 

“Do you have any left? I'd hate to return to hell sober,” Lucifer joked. 

“You are not going to hell. You need to stop saying that,” Ella protested. Lucifer just chuckled painfully. If only she knew. 

By the time Chloe figured out where the bomb was, Lucifer was unconscious and then all hell really broke loose. When the bombers ex-wife hit the detonator, Chloe instinctively threw herself on top of Lucifer to try and protect him and he jerked awake. “Oh, my God! Are you okay?” she asked worriedly. She’d been so afraid that he was dead for a minute. 

“You landed on my bullet wound. That's exactly the jolt of blinding pain I needed to bring me round,” Lucifer teased with a grimace. 

“I'm sorry,” Chloe said apologetically. 

“No, detective. You threw yourself onto me. You were willing to sacrifice yourself to save me, even though I’m all but dead already,” Lucifer told her. “Don’t ever do that again.” 

Chloe was saved from further tongue-lashing by the arrival of the medics and while they were taking care of him Dan came over. “I’ve got this. You go with him.” Even he wasn’t heartless. She gave him a grateful nod and rushed back over to Lucifer as his stretcher was being wheeled away, Ella and Eve following them. 

“Lucifer!” Maze screeched, running over as they got outside. “What the hell happened to you, you idiot?” 

“I took offense to someone trying to blow up my club and he took offense to my offense,” Lucifer joked. 

Maze responded by punching him in the leg. “Don’t you scare me like that again, damnit,” she snapped. 

Lucifer just laughed and shook his head at her. There wasn’t much he could say to that. This job was dangerous. He’d always known that. There were no guarantees. Thankfully, he didn’t have to worry about what to say or not because the ambulance doors were closing and he and Chloe were on the way to the hospital, leaving Maze and Eve standing there, Ella having gone over to give her statement. 

Lucifer lost consciousness again soon after they started moving, and Chloe called Miranda on the way to the hospital to tell her what happened before asking if she would be okay with Trixie overnight. She didn’t want to leave Lucifer’s side right now, and she was sure he would be there at least that long. Miranda quickly agreed and Chloe asked her to just tell Trixie she would call her a little later. She wanted to tell Trixie what happened herself. 

Once that was done, she called Amenadiel to meet her at the hospital. “What happened?” he asked, having left before everything happened. 

“Lucifer was shot. He’s lost a lot of blood. He might need a transfusion…” 

“And you need someone whose blood would be compatible,” Amenadiel figured out. “I’ll be right there.” He needed to be there to stop them from taking his blood for tests anyway. He would probably have to use his powers to switch out the vials without being noticed and the bags of blood with his own, but now that he had them back it wouldn’t be a problem.


	24. Chapter 24

Lucifer was feeling much better by the next morning, but Chloe refused to let him check himself out. She had called Trixie last night and let her know that Lucifer was hurt but that he would be okay and she was going to stay with him in the hospital, so she hadn’t been expecting her until tonight at least. Lucifer did manage to convince Chloe to go to work. Once she was gone he managed to stay put until mid-afternoon until he checked himself out. His healing was still quicker than normal despite his mortality when Chloe was around. He wasn’t exactly in tip top shape, but he could get around. He still had a bandage around his stomach and wasn’t completely steady on his feet as he headed into the precinct. 

“Lucifer!” Chloe cried as he came in and she rushed over to help him to a chair. “What are you doing out of the hospital?” 

“You can’t expect me to stay there for long, detective. They don’t even have cable and the view leaves a lot to be desired.”

She huffed. She should have known better than to leave him. “I’m almost done for the day and then I’ll take you home. Until then you just stay put,” she ordered. 

“Yes ma’am,” he gave her a teasing salute. She huffed again and muttered under her breath about stubborn idiots as she headed back to her desk, pushing his chair in front of her, wanting him close enough to keep an eye on him. 

When they got home, she helped him inside, and let him go to grab Trixie before she got to him. “No hugs for him today, Monkey. He’s still hurt.” 

Trixie nodded and hugged her mother instead before reaching over and patting Lucifer’s arm in lieu of a hug. Chloe continued helping Lucifer to the couch. “Now you are going to rest here for the rest of the week at least. If, and I mean IF you are completely better by Monday, you can come back to work then. Deal?” 

He hated the idea of her going out there without him and putting herself in danger, but he knew that he wasn’t exactly up for work right now. At least not that work. “On one condition,” he told her. 

“What’s that?” she asked. 

“Tomorrow, you stop by Lux on the way home and bring me the stuff Brad will have ready for you. At least I can catch up on that work while I’m stuck here.”

“Okay. That I can do,” Chloe nodded, relieved that his condition wasn’t worse. Lucifer pulled her down next to him, making a mental note to himself to call Brad tomorrow and tell him what to get together. 

“Can we eat in the living room so Lucifer doesn’t have to get up?” Trixie asked hopefully. 

“Okay, Monkey. Just this once,” she agreed, curling up to Lucifer’s side for a few minutes before Miranda came to let them know dinner was ready. Chloe made both her own plate and Lucifer’s and brought them back into the living room and the four of them sat around the coffee table to eat. Chloe was also nice enough to grab Lucifer a glass of scotch so he could stop sipping on his flask. 

By the time Lucifer went back to work the next week, he was more than glad to get out of the house. He had gotten completely caught up on the paperwork for Lux, the books were balanced and he’d gone through the inventory reports with a fine toothed comb, signed everything that needed his signature and was more than a little bored. He was fit as a fiddle by Friday, but Chloe still made him rest for the remainder of the weekend. At least she only made him refrain from sex for a few days otherwise he would have been in a really bad mood. 

The case they got on Monday ended up taking them most of the week to solve and it wasn’t until Thursday night that they got the little bastard. Lucifer had him cornered and tried to intimidate him with his devil face, but nothing happened and Lucifer’s surprise allowed him to slip away. When he killed a cop in the process, it made Lucifer even more pissed than he had been at the human trafficking and when he finally caught up to the little bastard, he shoved him against the guard rail harder than he intended and accidentally broke his back. 

He was sitting in the break room in the precinct, head in his hands, having just given his statement, when Chloe came in and sat next to him. “You okay?” she asked worriedly placing a hand on Lucifer’s back. 

“I’m sorry,” Lucifer said sadly. “I didn’t mean to…”

“I know,” Chloe told him. “It’s being written up as a freak accident that he hit the rail at just the wrong angle.” 

“I’m not worried about getting in trouble,” he snapped more harshly than he intended. 

“I know, Lucifer,” she told him gently, rubbing circles on his back. “But you still needed to know. It wasn’t your fault you know.” 

“Wasn’t it?”

“No. It wasn’t. It really was just an accident. If you had slammed him against a wall or something that hard, he might be a little bruised, but he would have been fine,” Chloe told him. “Accidents happened. I’ve hurt people on accident before. Hell, I’ve killed people in the line of duty. Sometimes shit happens. And you can’t say he didn’t deserve it.”

“I know he deserved it,” Lucifer told her. 

“Then what’s the problem? You’re all about punishment Lucifer, and while this may be a little extreme, you’re taking it pretty hard.”

“If I hurt someone, it’s because I want them hurt. This was…I lost control.”

Chloe nodded. She got it. “You’re not perfect, Lucifer, and no one expects you to be. We all slip up sometimes. Do you want to talk about why you lost control?” 

“It was just…everything. First it was the faces of those girls whose lives he destroyed, then I had him. He was right there, but my devil face wouldn’t work and it distracted me enough for him to get away and Joan got killed because of it,” he admitted. “It’s my fault she’s dead.”

‘Ah,’ Chloe thought. ‘Now we get to the real root of the issue.’ “Lucifer, what happened to Joan wasn’t your fault. It was Julian’s and only his. You’re not the first person that a suspect has given the slip to. It happens to the best of us. He’s the one who decided to shoot her. Not you.”

“You’re the only one who thinks that, detective,” Lucifer told her. 

“What do you mean?” Chloe asked worriedly. 

“Daniel agrees with me. He told me so. Said I was just as bad as the killers we hunt. Not quite in so many words, but his meaning was clear.” 

“Dan is not exactly reasonable when it comes to you, Lucifer. He blames you for things that aren’t your fault and you’re letting him get in your head. Don’t,” Chloe told him. 

“Well when he tells me what I already know…” 

Chloe was silently seething right now and she knew that she was about to blow and didn’t want to accidentally take it out on Lucifer so when she saw Ella walking by she motioned her to wait, and slipped out the door. “Will you sit with Lucifer for a bit? He’s taking this pretty hard and I need to…talk to someone.”

“Yeah. Sure. No problem,” she said cheerily and headed into the room and sat across from Lucifer, not that she ended up having much luck cheering him up. He didn’t even look at her. 

Chloe walked over and dragged Dan into the office across the way before punching him in the stomach. “What the fuck is your problem telling Lucifer that he’s evil,” she snapped. 

“Just because you’re too blind to see it…” 

“Oh, I am, am I? Does that mean Ella is blind too? Was Joan blind? Is every other person in this entire precinct just as blind as you say I am, because you’re the only one that has a problem with him, Dan. Look at him!” she exclaimed pointing across to the break room, where Lucifer was steadily ignoring Ella. “He’s already drowning in guilt over what happened to Joan and Julian and you have to go piling on more? What the hell is wrong with you?” 

“Don’t tell me you actually expect me to apologize to the jerk?” Dan scoffed, unable to admit that he might have gone too far this time. 

“Damn right, I do. I’ve forgiven you for a lot of bullshit over the years, Dan, but this is it. If you don’t make this right, I will make your life a living hell,” she snarled before walking out and slamming the door behind her. 

She took a few deep breaths for calm before she headed back into the break room and caught Ella’s eye, jerking her head towards the door. Ella just mouthed ‘sorry’, before heading out. “Lucifer, look at me. Please,” she begged. He sighed and turned to look at her, his eyes showing all the pain and misery she expected to see there. “Lucifer, this is NOT your fault. None of it. You’re doing it again. Taking responsibility for things you shouldn’t. The ONLY person out there who blames you is the one who hates you anyway. Ella doesn’t blame you, none of the other officers blame you, I don’t blame you, so don’t blame yourself,” she tried to reason with him. 

Before he could say anything, the door opened again and she heard Dan clear his throat. “Give us a minute, Chloe?” 

She glared at him, but nodded and stepped outside. Dan plopped into the chair across from Lucifer. “Come to give me another piece of your mind, have you? Go on. Let me have it,” Lucifer said, leaning back, trying and failing to look bored and unaffected. 

“Look, man. I’m not really good at this, but…I owe you an apology. I shouldn’t have blamed you for Joan. It was Julian that pulled the trigger. We’ve all lost suspects at one point or another, and you aren’t even really trained for this. It’s not your fault that he slipped away from you. And after what happened to Joan, I don’t blame you for getting a little rough with him. I know you didn’t mean to hurt him that badly. It was just a freak accident.”

Lucifer snorted derisively. “And just where is all this new-found enlightenment coming from, detective douche?” 

Dan just ignored the question and continued. “I shouldn’t have blamed you for Charlotte either. Chloe told me that you didn’t even know she was investigating him. That Amenadiel was the one who told her. I still think you should have told us all about Pierce as soon as you found out, but Chloe said that you tried and she shut you down. I think that you should have come to tell me or someone else, but I get why you didn’t…anyway, my point is, while I don’t always agree with how you handle things, that doesn’t make you a bad guy, and none of this is your fault.” 

Lucifer looked at him searchingly. “You actually believe that,” he said confused. 

“Yeah. I do. Look, at the crime scene, I was upset. I said things I didn’t mean. I don’t like you, and I probably never will, but you ARE a good guy. Even if you don’t like to show it much,” Dan said getting up to leave. He couldn’t take much more of this whole being nice to Lucifer thing. 

“Daniel,” Lucifer called before he got to the door, so he turned to look back at him. “Thank you.” Dan nodded and left as Chloe came back in. 

“You okay?” she asked. 

Lucifer sighed. “I don’t know,” he admitted. Chloe didn’t ask what Dan said only because it seemed to have helped. “I should have been more careful.” 

“Like I said before, you’re not perfect Lucifer. That doesn’t mean that this is your fault,” Chloe told him. She could see that he didn’t believe it still, but he seemed better than before, so she let it go for now. She wasn’t sure what else she could do to convince him. “You said you got distracted because your devil face didn’t work?” 

“Yes. I’m not sure what happened…”

“Maybe you’re making more progress at forgiving yourself than you thought,” she told him. “You said that it disappeared before when you started to feel good about yourself and only came back when you were forced to kill Pierce.” 

“Maybe,” Lucifer said absentmindedly. 

Chloe sighed. Lucifer had apparently hit his shut down limit. “Come on. Let’s go home,” she coaxed. “I’m done for the day now and we can both take tomorrow off. I already cleared it.” Lucifer just nodded and got up to follow her out.


	25. Chapter 25

The next morning, Lucifer was back to his old self, and Chloe watched him suspiciously. A few hours after Trixie had left for school, she’d had enough and cornered him for a conversation. “How are you?” she asked seriously. 

“Good as new,” he told her cheerily. 

“Really? After everything that happened yesterday?” 

“What do you want me to say? I messed up, got a cop killed, broke a kid’s back, and lost my devil face. Just a normal day right?” 

“Lucifer,” Chloe sighed sadly. 

“Look, I’m always going to think that I was at least partially to blame,” Lucifer told her. Nothing is going to change that. But the bastard who was more to blame has been punished appropriately. That’s as good as it’s going to get,” he told her. “And I really don’t want to talk about it anymore.” 

Chloe nodded. It sounded like he had at least processed. She still didn’t want him blaming himself at all, but she knew that was just beating a dead horse at this point. She wanted to believe that he was okay as he was pretending to be, but either way if he refused to talk about it anymore, she would do more harm than good by continuing to push. “Okay. Just know if you need to talk…” 

“I know,” he told her. “Now let’s just enjoy our day off and spend some time on the beach.” 

She smiled. “That sounds good to me.” 

On Saturday, Lucifer, Chloe, and Trixie all went into town to spend the day. Lucifer refused to go to the zoo or to Chuck E Cheese again, but he did agree to a history museum. He even found that he had fun once he realized that he could tell them some real stories behind the exhibits and the people involved. Once they were done at the museum they stopped for dinner and it wasn’t until the end of dinner that Lucifer’s phone rang and he had a short conversation, of which Chloe couldn’t figure anything out from his end. Once he hung up, he immediately waved the waitress down and handed her his card before telling Chloe. “There’s an emergency at Lux. We need to go.”

“What happened?” She asked as the waitress came back with the slip for him to sign. He left a generous tip as usual and headed out before explaining. 

“I’m not entirely sure and neither was Brad. Something happened in the storeroom and destroyed most of the stock. I need to go see how bad it is and help make a plan of how to handle it,” Lucifer told her. “You two can go upstairs and hang out in the penthouse while I figure it out,” he told her, knowing that the child couldn’t be in Lux when it was open. Chloe agreed, not seeing any problem with the plan, and when they got there, they headed for the outside elevator access while Lucifer went inside. 

It didn’t take long for Lucifer to handle things. Once he saw what was left, he told Brad, “Okay, just water down the drinks a little for tonight and if we run out, feel free to raid the stock in the penthouse. I’m calling the distributor now to see about getting a rush order here in the morning,” he said pulling out his phone and making the call. He had to pay triple the cost, but they would have it there first thing in the morning. “Any ideas how this happened?” he asked. 

“No. I don’t know. I heard a crash come from back there, but I was serving a customer at the time and none of the security was close enough to hear. By the time I got back there, that’s what I found. I swear everything was stacked right. It shouldn’t have fallen,” he said nervously. 

“I know,” Lucifer told him. He knew that none of his employees would make a mistake like that. “Someone must have snuck in and smashed the place up. Call in the morning and have a locksmith out here to change the locks and make sure it stays locked at all times from now on,” Lucifer told him, and Brad nodded. 

That handled, Lucifer headed upstairs to get Chloe and Trixie, so they could go home. He had just pulled a few of the bottles off the shelf to put on the bar for downstairs when the elevator went off again. Before he could react, three men with automatic weapons stepped out and he knew that he couldn’t take all of them down before they started firing. Not with them having those kinds of weapons so he did the only thing he could. He jumped over the bar, landing behind Chloe and Trixie pulling them down and wrapping his wings around them as the weapons let loose. 

Unfortunately, he wasn’t quite fast enough, because Trixie fell just as he closed them off. He caught her in his arms, but when he saw Chloe grab her gun, decided not to distract her yet by bringing her attention to it. He used his hand to try and stop the bleeding, while watching Chloe. Once she nodded that she was ready, he pulled his wings back just enough for her to get the gun out and just barely see and she quickly took out all three of the gunmen. 

When she turned and saw Trixie in Lucifer’s arms, bleeding she screamed, “Trix!” in horror. She was reaching for her phone to call 911, despite knowing that they would be too late, when she saw Lucifer pull a feather from his wrecked and bleeding wings, and she paused. She knew that the paramedics wouldn’t be able to save her, but if what Lucifer was doing had a chance, she would give him that chance. 

Lucifer placed the feather over the hole in her chest and it immediately became soaked with blood. He knew that it was a long shot. She wasn’t an angel and the wound wasn’t caused by a divine or hell-forged weapon, but it was the only chance. The two seconds he waited seemed to last forever as he muttered, “Come on. Come on.” Once he realized that it wasn’t going to work, he bowed his head, eyes filling with tears and took the last option they had. “Dad, please. I’ll do anything. Be anything. Please just save her. Don’t let her die.” 

Chloe saw that his method wasn’t working and when she heard him pray, she added her own silent ones to the mix, including the words, ‘If she dies, you might just lose him forever’. 

No sooner than the words left Lucifer’s mouth, before Chloe had even finished her own prayer, there was someone else standing in the room. Lucifer looked up, a few tears leaking from his eyes, and said, “Father please,” in a heartbroken voice. 

God gave him a sad smile and placed a hand on Lucifer’s shoulder as he knelt and put his other hand over Trixie’s chest and a bright glow came from his hand as the blood soaking her clothes and the floor and even Lucifer trailed back into her body and the wound closed. When Trixie suddenly gasped a breath and sat up, for the first time, Lucifer was the one to pull her into a hug that was almost immediately joined by Chloe and Trixie was crushed between them. God took a step back and sat heavily in the chair as they took their moment. 

After a minute, Lucifer collected himself as much as he could right now and reached a hand to Chloe’s cheek. “I’m so sorry, my love. I didn’t have a choice,” he whispered, kissing her tenderly. 

“What do you…” she trailed off as he let go of both of them and got up, walking over to the chair and kneeling in front of his father. 

“Thank you, father,” he said solemnly. “What is it you wish of me?” He knew that he was about to be sent back to hell and for the life of him, he couldn’t regret it. 

God sighed sadly and stood up, grabbing Lucifer’s arms and pulling him to his feet too. “I wish for a conversation,” he said. 

Lucifer looked at him in complete confusion. “What?” 

“All I ask in return for this favor is for you to talk to me and listen to what I say in return,” God told him. 

“O-okay. Now or…” Lucifer looked around. There was a lot of mess here that needed to be handled. 

“I will come to you when you get home,” God told him and disappeared when Lucifer nodded. 

Chloe took a few deep breaths after he left and said, “We need to call this in.” 

“I know,” Lucifer said, still completely rocked by what had happened and was going on autopilot as he went and grabbed three glasses from the cabinet and filled one with water and two with scotch, handing Trixie the water as Chloe ushered her from the room and away from the dead bodies. 

Once Chloe was back she took the scotch, took a long swig, and pulled out her phone, telling the dispatcher to make sure to tell Dan. There was no mention of Trixie being shot since there was no sign of it. “There’s still one thing we have to do,” Lucifer reminded her as she hung up. 

“What’s that?” Chloe asked. Lucifer grabbed a large piece of the broken glass and dragged it across his arm a few times, cutting both skin and his suit before Chloe could grab him and stop him. “What are you doing?” she asked frantically. 

“There’s a lot of my blood over there, far from the dead bodies. There needs to be an explanation other than my wings being shot all to hell,” he told her, letting the glass fall. He had done enough, already anyway. 

“Don’t do that again. We could have found another explanation,” she told him, before heading back into the empty bedroom to sit with Trixie until the units got there. 

Lucifer knew that he should go with her, but he was still too in shock to do anything but stand there and drink. It was only about five minutes later when the elevator dinged again, and a group of cops streamed out, Dan at the front. “Where is she,” he gasped. 

“Back there. She’s safe,” Lucifer told him, arm nearly soaked in blood by now. 

Dan, fully intending to hear all sides of this story at once, and not wanting to bring Trixie back in here with the dead bodies until he had to, grabbed Lucifer’s good arm and pulled him along, one of the other cops following to record their statements while the others started processing the scene. 

“What the hell happened?” Dan asked. 

Trixie was the first to speak while the two adults tried to figure out where to start. “We were getting ready to leave when the bad men came out of the elevator and started shooting. Lucifer flew over the bar and tackled us. I’m not sure after that,” she said hugging her knees to her chest. 

Dan forced himself to calm down, knowing that this situation was a powderkeg waiting to blow and really not wanting to start something with Lucifer after he had apparently saved his daughter’s life. “Why were you here to begin with?” Dan asked evenly, treating it like he was taking their statements, which he sort of was. 

“We were having dinner a few blocks away when I got a call about an emergency at Lux. I sent Chloe and Beatrice up here while I handled it, but when I came up to get them, those men came out of the elevator and started shooting. I was behind the bar getting some bottles ready to go downstairs when the elevator opened and as soon as I saw the muzzle of the gun, I jumped over the bar and tackled them both.” The fact that he was using their names told Chloe that he was in serious turmoil right now. 

“I was already pulling my gun when he tackled us and I flipped over and started shooting back,” Chloe added. 

“What happened to your arm?” Dan asked Lucifer. 

Lucifer looked down as if he just noticed. “Some of the glass. It was flying around everywhere,” Lucifer told him. 

“What was the emergency at Lux,” Dan asked, moving on. 

“Someone broke into the store-room and smashed most of the inventory,” Lucifer told him. 

“Probably to lure you here,” Dan figured and Lucifer nodded. He had come to the same conclusion. 

Lucifer set his jaw and looked at Dan for the first time since he got there. “You find out who was behind this, and take them down. Just make sure you leave a piece for me,” he said coldly. 

Dan nodded seriously back at him. For once, he and Lucifer were in complete agreement. “You should get them home. I’ll finish handling things here and we’ll let you know if we need any more information.” 

“Okay. If possible, let the bartender downstairs grab some of the booze up here if they need it?” Lucifer asked. 

“If I can, but I can’t make any promises. This is a crime scene and until we clear it, we can’t let anyone take anything.” 

“I understand,” he said. 

“Thank you, Dan,” Chloe said gratefully as she picked Trixie up and they headed out. Dan didn’t miss how Lucifer positioned himself behind Chloe, blocking Trixie’s view of the bodies as they headed out and he felt another wave of gratefulness for the man that he could barely stand.


	26. Chapter 26

Lucifer didn’t say a word on the hour drive home and neither did Trixie. Chloe kept silent more for their sakes, not sure what to say to either of them. Once they got home, Lucifer got out and headed straight into the house, grabbing a bottle on his way up the stairs to the upper balcony and leaned next to the rail by the pool, knowing that he wouldn’t have to wait long, and he didn’t. He took a swig straight from the bottle as he suddenly felt a presence next to him. Lucifer didn’t speak, waiting for his father to do so first. 

God walked over and leaned on the rail next to Lucifer, not sure where to begin this conversation, but decided to start with the beginning. “You need to know, Lucifer, that I never sent you to hell.” 

Lucifer scoffed. “Really? You want to start this conversation with lies?” 

“It’s not a lie son. You know now how your own feelings control your destiny,” God explained. “It was your own guilt that sent you there. Not me. I was angry with you, yes, and intended to punish you, but not that harshly, nor for so long. No matter how angry I was with you, you were and are still my son and I love you.”

Lucifer snorted, taking another swig from his bottle, really wishing he could be drunk for this. “If that’s true then why didn’t you ever do something to fix it?” 

“I had been trying to find a way when I was distracted by your mother. Trying to fix all the plagues, and floods, and supernovas, and so on was a full time job. I never got a moment to rest or try. When I realized that she wasn’t going to stop I started to fight her. That fight lasted for a very long time. Hundreds of years before I finally got the better of her enough to lock her away into hell. After that fight, I was weak. I still am weak.” 

“You really expect me to believe that? She was perfectly strong when she got out and you were the winner,” Lucifer said disbelievingly. 

“I wouldn’t say that I won. More that I lost a little less,” God told him. “And she didn’t have to deal with all the little things required to keep the universe going. I was using the power as fast as I could replenish it. Even now I’m barely at a quarter strength and it will probably me many more millennia before I’m back to full power.” 

“So you just left me there. In hell,” Lucifer told him. 

“I couldn’t get to you down there, son,” he told him. “I would have if I could. But even if I could get to you, I couldn’t bring you home until you resolved your own guilt.”

“Then why send Amenadiel to put me back every time I got up to earth,” Lucifer told him. 

“I didn’t,” God told him. “Amenadiel, like most of your brothers have since I all but disappeared to regain my powers, thought he knew what I wanted and acted on his own. I have only given Amenadiel one task since that time.”

“To make Chloe,” Lucifer guessed. 

“Correct.”

“Why? What was the purpose of that? If you didn’t hate me, then why put her in my path to make me vulnerable?” 

“I didn’t do it to make you vulnerable, son. I did to help open your heart. By the time you started coming to earth, I realized that you had closed yourself off, and I knew that I could never reach you or bring you home until you learned to love again. It’s you who makes yourself vulnerable around her. You feel vulnerable and so you are,” he explained. 

“Then I was right. Her feelings for me aren’t real. They’re all your doing,” Lucifer sighed, taking another long drink. 

“No. I have no control over her feelings, or yours. She is your soulmate, Lucifer. The only thing I controlled was when and where she was born.” 

“So she could ‘open my heart’ so you could bring me home?” Lucifer sneered.

“Yes,” God told him. “She has taught you to love and is teaching you to forgive yourself, so that perhaps, one day, you can come home.” 

“You gave her to me to love just to make me leave her to come home?” 

“No, Lucifer. You misunderstand me. First, I have no intention of forcing you to do anything. I know that you will wish to remain here with her for the rest of her mortal life. I /hope/ that when she dies and returns to heaven, you will come with her,” God told him. 

“You’re saying that her entire purpose for existing is to manipulate me into coming home. Tell me, /dad/, how long do I get? How long before you take her away and I have to either follow or walk away,” Lucifer snapped. 

“Not manipulate you, Lucifer. If you still choose not to come home, I won’t try to force you. It is and will always be your decision,” God told him. “As far as how long you have, I wrote her destiny myself. She is still mortal. Even I couldn’t change that, but she will die peacefully in her sleep of old age. I won’t tell you what age exactly, but I gave you as long as I could with her here.” 

“So…I get to keep her? I could…could marry her and have a whole life here with her?” Lucifer asked, looking at his father for the first time and daring to hope. 

“Yes, Lucifer. I know it doesn’t make up for everything that you’ve been through, but I hope it can be a start,” God told him. 

“You’re just going to let me live here on earth for as long as I want. And let me back home if I want. Even after I k-killed Uriel and a human?” 

“Neither of them gave you any choice Lucifer. I haven’t been able to interfere, but I have been watching. I’ve seen how you do everything you can to avoid killing, and as long as you exercise that same good judgement, I will accept it. I will always mourn for my son, but he caused his death with his own actions. You reacted the only way you could be expected to when he threatened everything you held dear.”

“And you just let it happen,” Lucifer accused. “You could have come and told him to back off. He would have listened to you.”

“Would he have?” God asked. “You heard him say that he didn’t care what I wanted that he was going to do what I needed regardless of what I said. Maybe it would have worked, maybe not, but either way I couldn’t interfere. I didn’t know he was leaving the Silver City until he was already here and with your mother on the loose, I didn’t dare step one foot out of heaven or she would have killed me, took over, and then destroyed the earth like she tried so hard to do before I managed to lock her away.”

“She told me that you wanted to destroy me. That she asked you to put me in hell instead,” Lucifer remembered. 

“She lied to you, Lucifer,” he said bluntly. 

“But /you’re/ telling the truth,” Lucifer said skeptically. 

“I have no proof to offer that you don’t already know,” God replied. “I wish that I did.”

“Then you really did want me to put her back into hell,” Lucifer supposed. 

“I wouldn’t have complained about that outcome, but that open door wasn’t me telling you to put her back, like you thought. I cracked the door open for /you/ to get back out. I didn’t expect her to escape as well. The way that you eventually handled it though…I’ve never been prouder of you than I was then, Lucifer.” He reached out a put a hand on his son’s shoulder. 

“Even though she was free to do as she wanted?” Lucifer asked confused.

“I never hated her. I just didn’t want her to destroy the world and since she waited to act until the sword was broken, hell was the only option to trap her. You found a way to save the world without any bloodshed and still make everyone happy, and yes. I am very proud of you for that,” God told him. 

Lucifer blinked back the tears in his eyes at those words that he’d wanted to hear for so long before he cleared his throat. “To sum up then, you claim that you never through me into hell, that it was all a manifestation of my guilt. You’re actually proud of me and want me to come home, and sent me Chloe to teach me how to love again. Is that about it?” 

“Yes,” God said with a nod. 

“I don’t know if I believe you or not. I need…time to think,” Lucifer said. 

“I completely understand, son. If you ever wish to speak with me again, just call for me.”

“You never come when anyone else calls for you,” Lucifer accused. 

“Because they don’t call for me. They just talk to me, and they don’t need to hear what I have to say the way you do,” God told him. “I know that unless we work out these issues, there is never any hope of getting you home, and for that, I will /make/ the time.” 

“I have one more question,” Lucifer said, not responding to that last statement. When God nodded, he asked, “Did you let all this happen tonight just so that you could have this opening to talk to me?” 

“No, Lucifer,” he shook his head. “I have no control over the actions of humans. You saw to that when you gifted them with free will. I simply took the opportunity it offered, so can you truly say that a simple conversation is too much to ask for Beatrice’s life?” 

Lucifer nodded in acceptance of his answer and his point and turned back to look over the ocean in a sign of clear dismissal and his father disappeared.


	27. Chapter 27

Chloe took Trixie to bed as Lucifer disappeared, and spent a good while talking to her about what happened and making sure that she was okay. She was struck, once again, at just how strong of a kid Trixie was when she realized that she was relatively okay. She had been scared, but all she remembered was a blur. She didn’t remember being shot or almost dying either which Chloe was more than thankful for. She just wished that she didn’t remember it either. 

Once she left Trixie, Chloe went looking for Lucifer. When she saw him talking to his father, she went and sat down, pulling a book from the shelf to read as she did. She glanced outside every few minutes to see if they were done, and when God finally left, she put the book down and went outside. She walked up behind Lucifer and put a hand on his back. “Are you okay?” she asked concerned. 

“I don’t have the slightest idea right now,” Lucifer said shakily. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked. 

“Not right now. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.” 

“Okay,” Chloe said, sliding up next to him and putting her arm around his waist. When his arm came around her, she leaned her head on his shoulder and just stood there with him in silence as his mind went in a hundred different directions. 

It was about twenty minutes before Lucifer suddenly stiffened and stepped away from her. “You didn’t react when you saw my father. Why?” 

“What do you mean?” Chloe asked trying to stall. 

“There was no look of awe, no surprise, no questions, nothing. It was like you already knew,” he looked at her suspiciously. 

Chloe knew that the only way out of this was to lie outright, but she wouldn’t do that. Not to him. Not to the one person who always told her the truth no matter how bad it made him look. “Please promise to at least hear me out?” she asked pleadingly. 

“Very well. I owe you that much at least,” Lucifer nodded curtly. 

“Can we…go in and…and sit down?” she asked, already having trouble getting her legs to hold her up. 

Lucifer nodded and turned to walk stiffly inside, sitting in the chair rather than on the couch so that she couldn’t sit next to him, already fearing the worst. Once she sat down, he said, “Now speak.”

“You know that when I saw your devil face, I freaked out. I ran away and went to Rome. What you may not know is that I wasn’t afraid of /you/ exactly. I mean, maybe I was for a minute at first, but not for long. I was terrified /for me/. I know it was selfish and cruel, and there is no excuse. No justification I can offer, but I can explain.”

“Then do,” Lucifer said, gripping the arms of the chair, afraid of where this was going. 

“You know I never believed in heaven and hell and all that and then I had it suddenly thrown in my face that it was all real. I was in love with you, even then Lucifer. I have been for a long time. Learning that the man I was in love with was the devil…The idea of going to hell terrified me, and I thought…I thought that loving you would send me there. Then Father Kinley found me and started telling me stories.”

“And you believed them,” Lucifer guessed. 

“I never believed that you were evil, Lucifer. Not really. I tried to, but when he showed me pictures of us, told me that he knew that we were close…he confirmed that fear that I would go to hell for it, and then told me that there was a way I could fix it. That I could avoid hell forever,” she said. 

“And this way involved sending me back there, I’m guessing.”  
Chloe nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. “He had this sedative that he said was strong enough to work on you. He said that I had to be the one to give it to you though. I didn’t know it was because I made you vulnerable. He told me that you weren’t supposed to be here anyway and that God had tasked us with sending you back and that was how I found my way to Rome. That God had sent me to give me a chance to atone.”

“How far did it go?” Lucifer asked. “And how does my father fit into this?” 

“I…I put the sedative in your drink and when you…were unconscious…I texted Father Kinley. Then your father showed up. He told me that you being here was his plan. That he didn’t want you in hell. He never had. That was…all I needed to hear to know that loving you was actually okay, but he didn’t let me go at that. He took me through memories of us, of you. He told me that I needed to see how stupid I’d really been, and he was right. I knew as soon as he appeared that I had been stupid, but then he gave me the chance to fix it. He said he could turn back time and begged him to do it. So that I could undo it all and do things the right way this time.”

“So you’re only with me because of him,” Lucifer said, forcing his voice to remain steady. 

“No, Lucifer. Not at all. I told you that I loved you before all that. I even asked him at one point if I was supposed to be with you and he said that wasn’t for him to say. He said I had to follow my heart, and that to pretend to love you if I didn’t would be a bigger betrayal than what I…I almost did. He told me he would send me to hell if I betrayed you again, and I never want to go back there, so you have to know that when I say I love you that I mean it…”

Lucifer held up a hand. “BACK there?” 

“I…one of the memories that he took me to was…was when you went to hell to get the antidote when I was poisoned. I don’t know how long I was there but it felt like…”

“He took you to hell,” Lucifer growled. “He DARED to…”

“I deserved it!” Chloe cried interrupting him. “I deserved to /stay/ there,” she almost whispered, pulling her knees to her chest. “Instead I got to come back here and have everything I ever dreamed of, and even if you never want to see me again, I wouldn’t trade a second of it for anything.” 

Lucifer sat there in silence breathing deeply with his eyes closed, trying everything he could to keep control as Chloe sobbed, waiting for her judgement. After a long minute, Lucifer’s eyes opened and he got up and walked stiffly outside. Chloe watched fearfully and when he jumped off the balcony she jumped up and ran out, screaming his name even as she watched his still bleeding wings unfurl as he flew away. Chloe gripped the railing tightly to keep herself from falling as she lowered herself to sitting, grief and guilt and denial washing over her as she leaned up against the glass and wept until she fell asleep, still sitting outside on the balcony.


	28. Chapter 28

Lucifer was invisible shortly after he’d taken off and when he did a flyby at Lux he could see that the police were still there so he just flew up to the roof and sat down against the wall, pulling his knees to his chest as he finally let the tears fall. He had never felt so completely overwhelmed in his long life, between the child almost dying, everything with his father and then with…with Chloe…He felt like he was being ripped apart. It was worse than hell even and he didn’t know how to stop it. It wasn’t long before the stress and exhaustion had him falling asleep right there on the roof, with his broken and bleeding wings wrapped around him like a cocoon. 

When he woke to the sun shining down on him, he felt both better and worse. He was stiff and sore from sleeping on a concrete rooftop all night, but the searing emotional agony was a little less searing. Enough that he could think around it at least. A quick check told him that his penthouse was empty now so he flew down to the balcony and walked in through the missing door He grabbed the first bottle he could find, glad that there were still some left and that the hail of bullets hadn’t been going in that direction, and he plopped himself down on the couch and started drinking as he tried and tried to grab onto any one thread of the thoughts that were swirling by to fast for him to focus on. It wasn’t until he finished the first bottle and tossed back a handful of assorted pills that he finally managed to grab hold of a thought. 

The first one that he caught was of Chloe telling him how she had betrayed him. How she had drugged him and tried to send him back to hell. He loved her. More than his own life. He’d proved it so many times. And she had just turned on him like that. So easily. All it took was a few honeyed words from a delusional priest and she’d tried to kill him. He grabbed another bottle. He remembered her justifications, because no matter what she called them that’s what they were. She was afraid of hell. She knew that he wasn’t evil. She had to have known how he felt about her. She said that she felt the same way, but she still tried to kill him just to save herself. How was he supposed to live with that? 

He heard his phone ring and pulled it out of his pocket and hit ignore before putting it on silent and tossing it away. He couldn’t talk to her right now. It felt like she was killing him all over again. No. Actually he knew that death would hurt far less than this. He almost wished that he hadn’t tossed Azrael’s blade through the void after his mother. Non-existence sounded pretty damn good right about now. He tossed the empty bottle and grabbed another one, tossing back another handful of pills with it. How could he stay here? But where would he go? Hell was…well…hell, and heaven…His father said he wanted him to come home, but he couldn’t. Not now. Not knowing what his father had done. He’d helped Chloe cover up her betrayal. He’d taken Chloe to hell. 

He’d thought the fact that his father had said that he never hated his mother was proof that he was lying. After everything that she did how could he not hate her. He got it now though. He didn’t hate Chloe. He couldn’t. No matter what she’d done, he didn’t have it in him to hate her, and the thought of her being in hell…even for a few minutes…He let out a scream of pain, throwing this empty bottle before grabbing another. He pushed the thought of her away. It hurt too much. And his thoughts started swirling around uncontrollably again as he just drank and drank. 

It was lunchtime when he ran out of booze and stumbled downstairs and raided the newly arrived stock, taking an entire box upstairs, not even caring who saw him lifting something that should have been impossible for him to carry without a hand truck. When he got back upstairs, he grabbed one of the new bottles and fell as much as sat back on the couch, spilling a good portion of it on him before he found his mouth, and he finally started grasping for thoughts again. 

His father had never thrown him in hell. He’d done it to himself. At least if the old man was to be believed. It made sense. Especially when he considered that his mother had to have known about how it was their own feelings that shaped their fate. He remembered how sympathetic she’d been to Amenadiel when he was falling, never once telling him…or either of them…how to stop it. She’d manipulated and lied to him so much that he hadn’t known which way was up by the end. He had no trouble believing that she had been lying. That didn’t necessarily mean that his father was telling the truth though. Did it? 

He turned that over in his head for a long while, not even aware of the passage of time anymore as he drank and popped pills, doing everything to hold onto the buzz he’d managed to get. He didn’t want it to go away. Not yet. Not until the pain went away. Had he really been so wrong for so long? Had he been hating his father when who he truly hated was himself? Doctor Linda had called that transference…he thought. It was all so fuzzy now. All those years in hell were his own doing. He’d been punishing himself. He remembered that the throne had appeared after he got there. He’d thought his father sent it, but was that his own doing too? Had he trapped himself with a throne that only he could fill? Why had he thought that it had to be filled anyway? Hell had done just fine without a king before then and it had been doing just fine since he’d been here. 

His father had said that he was proud of him. That he loved him. He’d spent so long thinking that his father hated him. How was he supposed to accept that he was so wrong? But if his father loved him then why would he help Chloe deceive him? Why would he help her cover up her betrayal? Didn’t he realize how much worse it would be when he eventually found out? Or did he think he wouldn’t? Did he expect him to spend the rest of his life in blissful ignorance? Never knowing that the woman he loved more than anything in existence had tried to have him killed. Never knowing how easily she could turn on him. 

Lucifer suddenly felt a new sensation that he’d never felt before. He could feel his stomach twisting in knots and taste bile in the back of his throat and then he couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t until the vomit was flowing onto the floor that he realized what was happening. He’d seen it happen before, but never experienced it. He fell off the couch and sat there on his hands and knees on the floor emptying everything in his stomach, which was just booze and pills at this point, and then when it was empty he still kept dry heaving. When he finally collapsed, he barely managed to miss the puddle and just laid on the floor, tears stinging his eyes as he gasped for breath. He’d finally lost the buzz he’d been trying so hard to hold onto and he broke down into sobs again as the pain washed over him anew. 

It took a little while before he pulled himself back up on the couch, grabbing a new bottle, and resolving to suck it up and get over it. Somehow. To do that he had to find a way to put himself back together though, which meant thinking it all through and finding the whys and hows. He didn’t notice the days passing as he thought. He thought about everything his father had said and came to the conclusion that he had been telling the truth. He had to be. But that didn’t mean he knew what he wanted to do about it. 

He put off thinking about Chloe for as long as he could, but somehow his thoughts always came back to her. He thought about how she had been since she got back. How she had told him that first night that he wasn’t the devil to her. How she had kissed him, even with his devil face and not even shied away from it even a little. That couldn’t have been fake. He had been watching her very carefully for any sign of revulsion or fear and there hadn’t been any. He remembered how she’d been so patient and forgiving when he was talking about his past. His sins. How could she try to kill him if she loved him so much?

Then he remembered how he felt when he first realized that he loved her. How terrified he’d been. How he’d tried to run away. How he thought that she’d been put here just to hurt him. How much worse must it have been for her, to find out that the person that she loved so terrifyingly was actually the devil. To think that she would be subjected to eternal torment just because of her love. How fragile she must have been when that priest started tearing her apart and reordering her world. How could he blame her for grabbing onto the little piece of salvation she was offered? As soon as she realized that she didn’t need it after all, she had run straight into his arms. She had done everything possible to make up for it. She had loved him when he was at his most unlovable…and he had walked away. Well, flew away. He knew that he could never forget, but maybe…just maybe…he could forgive.


	29. Chapter 29

Chloe woke up the next morning, still on the balcony, stiff and sore from the position she’d slept in, and she felt her tears welling up again. If Lucifer had come home he would have woken her. Or at least put her into bed. That meant that he hadn’t come back. She pulled herself to her feet and staggered to the bed, pulling his pillow to her face and inhaling his scent as the tears flowed freely. When Trixie came in looking for her, she told her that she was sick, and when Trixie came back a little later with toast and orange juice, she actually managed to eat about half of it. She felt bad for lying to her daughter, but there was no other way to explain right now. “Where’s Lucifer?” Trixie asked. 

“He had to go out for a while,” she told her. 

“Oh. When will he be back?” Trixie asked. “He should be taking care of you when you’re sick.”

Chloe swallowed the sob, and replied, “I don’t know. It might be for a while. He couldn’t help it.”

“It was really important stuff?” she asked. 

“Yes, Monkey,” she said, laying down and rolling over, so Trixie wouldn’t see the fresh wave of tears. “Mommy needs to rest now,” she croaked out and Trixie left her to her misery. 

It was a few hours before she managed to rouse herself enough to reach for her phone and call Lucifer. It only rang once before the voicemail started so she knew that he had dismissed the call, and she couldn’t blame him a bit, and she wasn’t going to bother him after this, but there was something that she needed to say. “Lucifer, I know you don’t want to talk to me right now and I understand, but I just need to say that I love you with everything I am. I can’t imagine how you’re feeling right now, and I know I’m sorry doesn’t even begin to cover it, but I /am/ sorry. If you want me to move out of here, all you have to do is just let me know. By text if you don’t want to hear my voice. Until then though, know that anytime you’re ready to come home I’ll be waiting. I miss you, and I love you. Forever.”

Voicemail left, she allowed herself to fall back into her tears and spent the rest of the day hugging his pillow and crying, eating only when Trixie or Miranda brought her food. Miranda sent her knowing looks, having figured out what was going on, but didn’t say anything. The next morning, she called out of work. Told them it was the flu and she would be out the whole week until she wasn’t contagious anymore. She didn’t know if Lucifer was coming back or when, but she wanted to be here if he did. At least if he came back soon. 

The next few days were spent much the same until something startled her out of it. Judging by the sun it was about midday when she heard a crash from the balcony. She ran out of her room, hope flaring in her heart, and ran even faster when she saw Lucifer picking up the chair he had apparently knocked over. She gasped at the sight of him still in the same clothes he’d been wearing when he left which were dirty and rumpled, the shirt half open. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair was sticking up all over the place. 

When he saw her, Lucifer fell to his knees, unable to hold himself upright anymore and she rushed towards him and started to reach out, before she pulled her hand back, unsure if he would welcome her touch or not, but before she could pull back very far, his hand shot out and grabbed hers. He yanked her to him, and she fell to her knees in front of him as he pulled her into an almost crushing hug, burying his face in her neck, tears falling against her skin. Chloe held him just as tightly, sobbing on his shoulder, as he finally found words. “Please…Chloe…never…never again. It would…would break me…Please…” 

“I won’t, Lucifer…I swear…I’ll do anything you need to…to prove it…I’ll never hurt you again…I swear,” she mumbled against his shoulder through her sobs. He let go of her and put his hands to either side of her face, kissing her like he was drowning and she kissed him back just as urgently. It didn’t take long before he was carrying her to the bed. He needed her desperately right now. Needed to remember what it was like to be loved. 

Two hours later, he collapsed on the bed beside her and pulled her tightly against him, and she happily assumed their normal position, finally getting to hug him instead of his pillow again. It didn’t take long before they were both fast asleep. She hadn’t been sleeping well and he hadn’t slept at all since that first night. 

Chloe woke up just as the sun was starting to set, and as much as she didn’t want to leave Lucifer right now, she wasn’t sure how many days it had been since she’d seen Trixie for more than a few minutes. She grabbed her phone to check the date and realized that it had been four days. It was now Wednesday night. She definitely needed to get up for a little while. But just until Trixie went to bed. Then she would be back. 

She headed downstairs to find Trixie and Miranda eating dinner, and she made herself a plate and joined them. “Are you feeling better, Mommy?” Trixie asked. 

“Yes, Monkey. I’m feeling a lot better.”

“Is it because Lucifer is back?” she asked and Miranda choked a bit before biting her lip. 

“That definitely helps,” Chloe told her. “How did you know he was back?” 

“I went to check on you when I got home, and saw you both sleeping,” Trixie told her. Chloe was glad that Lucifer was apparently too exhausted to kick the blankets off like he usually ended up doing since they had both been naked underneath them. 

After dinner, Chloe pulled Miranda aside and told her to feel free to take the rest of the week off and thanked her for picking up the slack the last few days. Miranda just hugged her and said that she’d been there more than once herself and was glad to help. Chloe spent the next little while curled up on the couch with Trixie talking about her week until it was time for Trixie to go to bed. After reading her a bedtime story, Chloe went back upstairs and slipped back into bed next to Lucifer, who instinctively pulled her close in his sleep. 

Chloe just laid there with him for a few hours before sleep claimed her again, and they both woke up with the sun. Chloe pulled herself out of bed and headed downstairs to get Chloe up for school while Lucifer jumped in the shower. By the time he got downstairs, breakfast was already made and he sat down with his scrambled eggs and toast, flinching when Trixie hugged him, but not pulling away. “I missed you, Lucifer. I’m glad you’re back. Mommy said you were away on very important business. Is everything okay now?” she babbled. 

“It will be,” Lucifer told her turning to watch Chloe with a sad smile, not sure what to say to the rest of her string of consciousness. Chloe reached out and squeezed his hand. She knew that they needed to talk once Trixie left for school. 

Once Trixie was on the bus, Lucifer looked at Chloe curiously. “You’re not going to work today?” 

Chloe blushed and shrugged. “I haven’t exactly been up for work the last few days so I called out for the whole week. I told them I had the flu and I figured I could get Linda to write me a doctor’s note.”

“No, it would be too easy to find out that she’s not that kind of doctor. I’ll make a call and get you a more legit note,” Lucifer promised. “What day is it anyway?” 

“Thursday,” Chloe told him. “I had to check myself.”

Lucifer got up and went to the couch, pulling her down to sit next to him. “I’m sorry that I ran off like that. It was just too much. Everything with my dad and then finding out…” he trailed off, a look of pain washing over his face. 

“It’s okay, Lucifer. Really. I completely understand. I probably would have done the same in your position. I don’t blame you a bit,” Chloe told him. “I wouldn’t have blamed you if you didn’t come back at all, even.”

“I was a mess, Chloe,” he said roughly, feeling the lump in his throat again. “I just…couldn’t take it. It hurt so much…but I get it now. It took a while, but I figured it out.”

“Figured what out?” she asked, desperately hoping that it wasn’t something that was going to tear her apart again. 

“When I realized how much I loved you, I freaked out too. I panicked. I ran away. It must have been so much worse for you realizing that I was the devil at the same time. That priest manipulated you at your weakest point,” Lucifer told her. 

“That doesn’t make it right,” Chloe said sadly. 

“No, it doesn’t. But it does make sense. For the longest time I couldn’t make sense of how you could love me and still betray me like that. It was like the pieces wouldn’t slot together in my brain. Like one of them had to be a lie and why would you lie about betraying me, so…”

“Oh, Lucifer,” Chloe whispered laying her head on his shoulder to hide her tears. “I /do/ love you. So much it hurts. And it is scary. Even now, but you have to know that I would die before I would ever hurt you again.”

“It’s going to take time before I can really believe that again, Chloe,” Lucifer told her, wrapping his arm around her. “Can you live with that?” 

“If it means you’ll stay with me? Absolutely,” Chloe told him, knowing that it was no less than she deserved. They cuddled on the couch for a little while before Lucifer pulled out his phone, finally noticing that he had a voicemail and he listened to it, before smiling sadly and deleting it. Then he called a doctor and called in a favor for a note for Chloe, and then called a professional cleaner for the penthouse. 

“Why do you need a cleaner for the penthouse? From the incident last weekend?” Chloe asked curiously. 

Lucifer shrugged sheepishly. “I told you I was a mess. I rather added quite a bit of broken glass, spilled booze and…well…other things.” 

“What kind of other things?” she asked confused before it hit her what he could be talking about. “Never mind. I don’t need to know,” she said quickly. 

“No, no, no,” Lucifer said. “Nothing like that. I’ve still been completely faithful to you Chloe and I intend to remain so until or unless we are /clearly/ over.”

“Oh,” she sighed with relief. She wouldn’t have blamed him if he had, but she was glad that he hadn’t. “What then?” 

“Well…I learned just how unpleasant it is to…vomit,” he said distastefully.

Chloe screwed up her nose and gave him a sympathetic look. “Yeah. That’s probably one of the most unpleasant things about being human.”


	30. Chapter 30

Lucifer just held her for a little while before asking, “What did my father say to you?” 

“About what in particular?” Chloe asked. 

“Any of it…me…why…anything,” Lucifer asked. 

“Well when he got there, he was mad. Told me that I was messing up his plan. That I was supposed to save you, not break you. He told me that he’d been trying to find a way to bring you home ever since you ended up in hell and now that he was so close, he wouldn’t let me screw it up.”

“Screw it up by betraying me?” he asked evenly. 

Chloe sniffled. “Yeah. He said that what I was trying to do would have broken you for good and you would probably never love or trust again and then he would never see you again. He probably would have killed me if…”

“If what?” Lucifer asked. 

“If I hadn’t been so sorry. If you didn’t care so much about me. If I wasn’t so determined to fix it.”

“But you didn’t fix it. You erased it,” Lucifer pointed out.

She nodded. “I didn’t know if I /could/ fix it at the point we were. When you woke up, you would have walked away and hated me forever and I would have deserved it. Still do deserve it,” she told him. “I couldn’t take losing you. Not after I learned that it was okay to love you.”

“I didn’t know that it was okay to love you until after I talked to my father,” Lucifer told her. “At first I thought your feelings for me weren’t real. That he had /made/ you love me and I had to save you from being used like that. Even after we were together I kept waiting for the blow. For the thing that would rip us apart and complete his plan to hurt me. That’s why I put your name on everything. So that when it did happen, you would be taken care of.”

“And when you were shot by that bomber, that’s why you thought you were going to die,” Chloe figured out. 

“Yes,” Lucifer told her. 

“And when you offered anything and everything for Trixie’s life, that’s why you kissed me and apologized. You thought he was going to take you away from me,” Chloe figured out. 

“Yes,” he said again. 

“Why didn’t you talk to me about it?” 

“Would it have mattered?” Lucifer asked her. “Would you have told me about any of this if I hadn’t backed you into a corner with my questions?” 

“I don’t know,” she admitted sadly, looking down at her hands. “I want to think that I would have done anything I could to ease your fears, but I just don’t know. It wasn’t just to save myself though.”

“It wasn’t?” Lucifer scoffed.

“No. A little bit might have been to save myself. So I wouldn’t have to risk losing you. But mostly it was because I couldn’t bear to hurt you. Even when I was doing it, before he showed up, the look of betrayal on your face when you realized that I spiked your drink…it almost killed me. I could see how much it hurt you and I just…I couldn’t ever hurt you like that again.” 

“But you still called the priest after I was unconscious,” Lucifer said trying to understand. 

“I thought I had gone too far to back out then. I was going on autopilot. I didn’t even realize what I was doing at that point. I knew that hurt in your eyes would haunt me for the rest of my life, and I was right. Even undoing it all didn’t help that. I still see it every time I close my eyes,” she told him. “I didn’t want you to be haunted by that memory too.” 

“And that’s why my father turned back the clock?” Lucifer asked. 

Chloe nodded. “At first he said that he was definitely going to so that you never had to know that kind of betrayal, but after all the memories, when he saw how much I regretted it and how determined I was to fix it, he gave me the choice.” 

“And you…both of you…decided that I needed to live a lie rather than face the truth.” 

“I…I didn’t think of it like that, but Lucifer, please, you have to know that everything since then…all of this…us…it’s real. It’s not a lie,” Chloe said plaintively. 

Lucifer got up and started pacing. “Yes it is, detective,” he snapped. “All this,” he motioned his arm around, “is because of some divine intervention. God himself had to step in to stop you from killing me and throwing me back into the hell I worked so hard to escape from.” He sighed and almost whispered the next part. “You couldn’t…couldn’t believe in…in /me/. You had to have known that I would never let you end up in hell, Chloe. You had to know that I would never risk that for anything. I would have made any deal, any sacrifice to prevent it.”

Chloe nodded, tears running down her cheeks. “I /should/ have known that. You’re absolutely right. I let my fear blind me. Control me. And I made the biggest mistake of my life because of it. And I swear, Lucifer, I’m not just saying that because God said it was a mistake. It’s because my heart, everything in me, knows that I was completely, one hundred percent wrong, and because of that I hurt the person who means more to me than anything in this world. Whether you ever forgive me or not, I will spend the rest of my life…the rest of my existence…doing whatever I can to earn the forgiveness that I could never deserve.”

Lucifer sighed and walked back over to the couch and knelt in front of her. “I do forgive you, Chloe. Not because you deserve it. That’s not for me to say, but because I love you. Because as badly as I’m hurting right now, losing you would hurt so much worse. But please understand…I’m so close to my breaking point right now that…if you ever…ever betrayed me again…there would be no coming back from it. Ever. I would become everything the world accuses me of being. I would shatter completely.” 

Chloe reached out a hand to his cheek, tears still running down her own. “I meant what I said before, Lucifer. I would die before I would ever hurt you again. I’m not saying we’re never going to argue, and I might say hurtful things, no matter how much I don’t mean them, but I will never turn my back on you. I will never betray you. No matter what the consequences are.”

Lucifer took a deep breath and leaned his forehead against hers, closing his eyes. They stayed like that for a long moment before Lucifer sighed and got up. “I think I need to talk to my father again.”

Chloe nodded. “Okay. I’ll be here when you’re done,” she told him. Lucifer nodded at her and headed upstairs to the balcony. For some reason it seemed a more appropriate place for this. 

“Dad, you said you’d come if I wanted to talk again,” Lucifer said looking up at the sky. He waited for about five minutes and was just about to give up and chalk it up to another one on the list of lies he fell for when God appeared. 

“I apologize that it took me so long. I was trying to clean up after one of your brothers,” God told him. 

“Oh?” Lucifer asked curiously, waiting for more of an explanation. 

“Remiel found out about Amenadiel’s child and was trying to mobilize help to take the child to raise at home,” God told him. 

“And what did you do?” Lucifer asked. 

“Told them that it was Amenadiel’s choice where to raise his child, as is his right,” God told him. 

“So you’re talking to them again?” Lucifer asked evenly, not sure how he felt about that. 

“I am, yes. You helped me to realize that hiding away in my weakness wasn’t fair to any of you.”

“And how did I do that?” Lucifer scoffed. 

“By reminding me that my words carry weight. By showing me that the fact that I’m weak doesn’t change that. I feared another rebellion if it was learned how weak I was, and because of that fear, I let things deteriorate. I was wrong, Lucifer, and I am sorry. For all the pain that it has caused everyone, but especially you,” God told him sincerely. 

Lucifer closed his eyes and swallowed around the lump in his throat. In all his wildest dreams of this moment, never did he imagine his father admitting that he was wrong and apologizing. “It’s not like any of this matters anyway,” Lucifer said sadly. 

“What do you mean, son?” 

“All this talk of you wanting me to come home,” Lucifer told him. “It’s not just your home is it? And everyone else there hates me.”

“No, Lucifer. They don’t hate you. They just fear you,” God told him. 

“That’s even worse,” Lucifer whispered. 

“Perhaps, but fears can be overcome, and you have to admit that they do have reason. You started a rebellion Lucifer. Raphael died because of it. You have been punished more than enough, but that doesn’t change the fact that it happened,” God said gently. Lucifer just nodded, looking out over the ocean with a haunted look. “If it helps, I did tell them that too. That you had been punished enough and that if you decided to come home they would be expected to treat you as their brother again.” 

Lucifer scoffed. “And I’m just to accept the fact that my own family only accepts me because you told them to?” 

“At first, yes. They will see that there is nothing to fear from you in time, but a first step has to start somewhere,” God told him. 

Lucifer sighed heavily before seeming to shake himself off. “This is all beside the point. I have no intention of going back there anytime soon, if ever. This is my home now. I really called you here to talk about Chloe.”


	31. Chapter 31

“I see,” God said with a nod. 

“She told me…everything,” Lucifer accused. 

“I know. I saw,” God told him. 

“And you didn’t come? You saw how badly I was hurting. How messed up I was.”

“And would you have welcomed my interference or resented me for it? My talking to you about it would have made you less likely to talk things out with her, which would have hurt your relationship even more.”

“So you just did nothing?” 

God sighed. “Try to understand, Lucifer, that sometimes doing nothing is the best thing. If I try to fix everything for you, then it hurts you more in the long run because then you have less of a foundation to build from.”

“Sounds like a load of crap to me,” Lucifer snarked. 

“Think about it, Lucifer. If I had come and told you everything that you talked to her about, then you would have come back here and pretended that nothing ever happened. She would have lived in fear that it could hit you at any time and you would always wonder what she thought and felt about it all. You would have the easy answers and no reason to dig deeper. Nothing would truly be resolved that way.”

“And how is it ever supposed to be truly resolved?” Lucifer asked him. “You can’t resolve something that never really happened, can you? You can’t actually /fix/ something once it’s erased.”

“Perhaps you’re right about that one. Perhaps that’s simply another mistake on my part. I don’t know. But if it is a mistake, Lucifer, please understand that it wasn’t done out of malice. It was done out of a sincere desire to spare you that pain.” 

“Well great job, Dad. It worked like a charm,” Lucifer drawled sarcastically. When his father didn’t respond, Lucifer moved on. “She said you took her through memories. What all did you show her? Just things about us?”

“Mostly things about the two of you, but a few background memories to help her understand you better as well.”

“Like what?” 

“Like when I sent Frank Lawrence to you,” God told him. 

“You mean, you actually did send him? Why?” Lucifer asked. 

“So that he could tell you that I hadn’t given up on you. That I did believe in you and that my plan for you wasn’t finished,” God told him. 

“And you couldn’t be bothered to come tell me all that yourself?” Lucifer scoffed. 

“Would you have heard me?” God asked, and when Lucifer didn’t answer he said, “You at least listened to him. There wasn’t as much hatred there to cloud your judgement. You didn’t believe, of course, and I never expected you to. I just wanted you to consider the possibility.”

“And then you just had to kill him,” Lucifer snapped. “Was that actually supposed to help?” 

“You? Maybe. Him? Definitely,” God said. 

“Killing him was helping him?” Lucifer asked incredulously. 

“Yes. It was. It was his predestined time to go anyway. I just gave him one last job to do before he went. He is now reunited with his daughter in heaven. They are happy, and have been rewarded for his assistance.”

“If you say so,” Lucifer said, unwilling to admit that his father had a point. “What else did you show her?”

“Many of your interactions with your mother. She needed to understand that relationship to be able to understand what happened with Uriel.”

“You showed her that?!” Lucifer shouted. “You made her watch me kill my own brother?!” Lucifer lashed out and shoved his father hard. God stumbled sideways and landed in the pool with a splash. Part of Lucifer was afraid that he was about to be punished for that. Part of him wanted to laugh. Most of him though was just numb.

The deity pulled himself from the water and returned to the railing. “I deserved that,” he admitted. “Though not for what you think. I had to show her that so that she could understand your pain.”

“You /had/ to show her that I really was the monster that the world thinks I am?” Lucifer scoffed. 

“No, Lucifer. You are not a monster. You never have been. She needed to see how much she meant to you. How far you would go to protect her. Even after all these years, she still remembered that time when you were in so much pain and still wanted to understand, so I allowed her to. It was the same reason I showed her how far you went to get the antidote when she was poisoned.”

“You took her to hell,” Lucifer accused with a glare. 

“I did. Not for punishment, though that was a side-effect, and only for a few minutes. Only long enough to see you trapped in your own hell before your mother pulled you out of your guilt and admitted to manipulating you,” God told him. 

“She never should have stepped foot down there. I never wanted her to experience that. Even for a moment,” Lucifer said plaintively. 

“If she had continued on her path, she would have been there permanently soon enough. She needed that experience to keep her off that path.” 

“It doesn’t matter. She was afraid of it enough already. You could have just told her that’s where she was headed,” Lucifer argued. 

“I could have, yes, but this way was more effective. Perhaps it was petty of me, but she tried to kill my son, Lucifer. The son that I’d been working so hard to bring home and I almost lost you forever because of her actions. I would never have hurt her, just because of how you felt about her, but that didn’t mean that I could just stand by and do nothing. If five minutes of hell was what it took to get my point across then it was worth it.” 

“Not to me, Dad,” Lucifer said sadly. “You really think I wanted her to be with me because you scared her to death?”

God sighed. “Lucifer, listen to me. That is NOT why she is with you and I think you know that. What I told her was not to play with your heart. Not to pretend with you either way. I told her that it was her decision whether to be with you or not, and I warned her not to unless she truly loved you. I told her that pretending to love you would be just as much of a betrayal as trying to kill you. I also told her what would happen to her if she betrayed you. Her feelings are completely genuine, son.” He knew that she had already told him that, but if he needed to hear it again, then God would gladly tell him. 

“Did you show her anything private?” Lucifer asked dangerously. 

“No,” God assured him. “Not really, anyway. For example, your sessions with your therapist never came up other than the conversation where you revealed yourself to her.”

“Why did you feel the need to show her that?” Lucifer asked, this time more curious than angry. 

“The only time she had seen that side of you was in a moment of violence. She needed to see it in a moment of peace. She needed to see how seriously you took it and how understanding you were about potential reactions. And she needed to see how much that rejection hurt you.” 

“So that she could understand me,” Lucifer said. “Was there anything else? That she wasn’t there for, that is.” 

“I showed her what happened and what was said in the mental hospital,” God told him, knowing that the next question was coming. 

“What was your role in that?” Lucifer asked. At the time he’d thought it was actually his father. Afterwards he thought it was all a lie. He wanted to know the truth. 

“That piece he was wearing as a belt buckle gave him a connection to me. I wasn’t controlling him, not the entire time anyway, but he was able access some powers and began to call himself God. I didn’t actually take control until I saw you there. Everything that he said to you was me. I was trying to give you more explanations, but we kept getting interrupted. Of course, as soon as we left the mental hospital and I realized that you were taking me to your mother, I withdrew. I had no idea whether she would be able to sense that tendril of connection between us or not.”

“Then it really was you…saying those things,” Lucifer said with a sigh. “Anything else?”

“A few confrontations with your mother and Amenadiel, what you did for your mother at the end, when you went after Cain for hurting her, your confrontation with Malcom when you found out he was the killer and then with Amenadiel, a conversation with Linda when you were speaking as friends instead of in a professional capacity,”

“What conversation?” Lucifer interrupted. 

“When you were talking about wanting Chloe to choose you and she pointed out that you were taking her choice away too,” God told him and Lucifer nodded. That wasn’t so bad. “And the last one that she wasn’t originally there for was when you had tried to be her to understand her and when you figured out what you thought was the reason…well, I think you should talk to her about that. Judging by the look on her face, you were wrong. At least partially.” 

Lucifer nodded, looking out over the ocean as he asked the most important question of all. “And when exactly on this little trip of yours did she start to show remorse? When did she realize that she was wrong?” 

“The moment I appeared and said that I wouldn’t let it happen. The first words out of her mouth were apologies and that she thought she was doing what I wanted,” God told him. Lucifer just nodded again, looking out over the ocean. When Lucifer didn’t say anything else, God reached out a put a hand on his shoulder. “If you need to speak again, just let me know.” When he got no response still, he left.


	32. Chapter 32

Lucifer had been standing there alone for more than an hour before he heard the door open behind him. Chloe walked up and put a hand on his back. “Are you okay?” she asked softly. 

“I…I think I will be,” Lucifer said almost in awe at the very idea. 

“And…are /we/ okay?” she asked worriedly. 

Lucifer smiled and wrapped an arm around her, pulling her to his side. “We will be,” he promised. “It still hurts, and it probably always will to some degree. We can get past it though. As long as there are no more secrets.” 

Chloe sighed with relief and rested her head on his shoulder. “No more secrets,” she promised. 

It was another two weeks before Lucifer called his father again. He had spent a lot of time thinking about everything and even talking about it with Chloe and Dr. Linda once he’d wrapped his own head around it, and he’d come to a decision. When his father arrived, Lucifer said, “This is still my home, Dad. And will be for at least as long as Chloe is alive.” 

“I expected as much,” God easily accepted.

“But maybe…I could visit sometimes…see how things go?” Lucifer suggested, trying not to show how vulnerable he really was in this moment. 

God beamed and reached both of his hands to Lucifer’s shoulders. “That would be a most welcome gift.” 

“But on one condition,” Lucifer added. When his father looked at him expectantly, Lucifer continued. “Family counseling. You and me, and maybe Amenadiel sometimes if he wants to.” 

God nodded. He was skeptical, but if that was the price to pay to get his son back, then he would gladly do it. “And would you consider including your other brothers and sisters as well?” he had to ask. 

“If they want to, I’ll think about it,” Lucifer agreed after a moment’s though. “But only if they want to. You can’t tell them to.” 

“That is acceptable,” God told him before pulling him in for a hug. Lucifer hesitated a moment before returning it. When they both let go, God left his hands on Lucifer’s shoulders. “There’s just one more thing, Lucifer. 

“What’s that?” he asked curiously. The deity smirked and shoved Lucifer backwards into the pool. “DAD!” he sputtered, flailing. “This suit is a Prada!” 

“Payback,” God smirked again before disappearing just as Lucifer started to pull himself out of the pool. 

Lucifer laughed and looked up at the sky. “Well played old man,” he called out before heading in to dry off and change. 

After that, Lucifer went to The Silver City once a month to visit. Mostly he just visited his father and the few of his siblings who easily accepted him back, though over time more were added to that number. Once a week, God came to earth for family therapy with Dr. Linda, and it only took half of their first session for her to stop gushing and actually get to their problems. She had gotten a lot better over the years, though there was a bit of a backslide the first time she criticized God for his handling of a situation. God was quick to reassure her and remind her that was what they were there for. Once a month Amenadiel joined them, with Charlie after he was born. 

It was three months after ‘the incident’ as he had begun calling it in his mind, before Lucifer felt secure enough to propose to Chloe. He would have right after his first talk with his father if everything else hadn’t come to light, but he needed time to get past all that, and when he finally did pop the question, their relationship was as secure as could be. Naturally his proposal was perfect. Flowers, music, dancing, and getting down on one knee at sunset on the balcony overlooking the beach. 

At first Chloe didn’t like the idea of a big wedding until Lucifer mentioned hiring a wedding planner. Then Chloe relaxed. Especially since Lucifer was the one to work closely with her making all the decisions. All she had to do was give yes or no answers when he came to her for final approval, and it wasn’t like anyone could ever fault his taste. The date was set for six months away, at the end of summer giving them plenty of time to plan. Lucifer quickly decided that Amenadiel would be his best man, but when Chloe wanted Maze, Linda, and Ella on her side, Lucifer had to decide which two brothers he wanted to add. Eventually he asked Gabriel and Michael, they having been the ones who accepted him back almost immediately. He was just glad that Chloe had decided against having Eve, who was in a surprisingly solid relationship with Maze, in the wedding too. 

Azriel had all but demanded that Lucifer let Ella in on the secret before the wedding. She wanted to come visibly and as herself and Lucifer finally relented, and was visibly taken aback at just how easily the little lab tech accepted it all, even the fact that her best ghost friend was actually the angel of death. God himself wanted to perform the ceremony, and Lucifer agreed if he could find a way to still make it legal the human way. The deity quickly resolved that by appearing before a priest, one of the good ones of course, to take care of the legal paperwork part. Aside from the near coronary the priest had when he saw the groom’s name on the marriage certificate, it went smoothly, even if only half of the attendees got the joke when God finished the ceremony with ‘by the power invested in me by me’. 

The party afterwards went on long into the night before the newlyweds headed out to start their honeymoon. Trixie was staying with Dan while Lucifer and Chloe travelled Europe for two weeks, avoiding Rome by silent agreement. God considered blessing the new couple with their own miracle, but thankfully mentioned the idea near Amenadiel and Linda first and they both talked him down. At least not without talking to the happy couple first. When he did, they thanked him for the thought, but said a resounding, no thanks. Well, it was resounding for Lucifer. Chloe wouldn’t have minded either way. 

The family therapy continued for the rest of Linda’s life. After all, there were a LOT of issues to work out, some of them older than time. Even after Linda died, the sessions continued in heaven. Linda, unlike most human souls, wasn’t confined to one section of heaven but could move around freely thanks to her relationships with the man in charge and two of his sons, not to mention her own son who had been living there for many years already. 

Lucifer did end up returning the The Silver City almost full time once Chloe died, but he did pop back down to earth on a regular basis. They did have the best parties down there, after all. Chloe, like Linda, was able to roam all of heaven as she wished and actually lived in the city itself with Lucifer. Unfortunately, she couldn’t go back down to earth with him, but she didn’t mind that so much. He was perfectly willing to take messages to her daughter and grandchildren until they arrived. It had been a difficult road, but in the end Lucifer and Chloe had both found their redemption in each other.


End file.
